Visions and Truths
by chaosattractor
Summary: Karkat has been trying to wish his best friend happy wriggling day for three days, but Sollux isn't answering any of his messages. On the fourth day, Sollux shows up unexpectedly at Karkat's hive claiming that everything has changed. Can Karkat figure out what his friend is going through before things get completely out of control?
1. Chapter 1

twinArmageddons [TA] began trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG]

TA: KK.  
TA: hey KK where are you, ii need two talk two you.  
TA: iim 2eriiou2, hurry up and get your a22 back here.  
TA: KK.  
TA: urgh KK what are you doiing, thii2 ii2 2o annoying.  
TA: what could po22iibly be occupyiing your tiime riight now that ii2 more iimportant than thii2, ii know iit2 bound two be 2omethiing totally u2ele22.  
TA: liike you are probably iin your cocoon pawiing furiiou2ly at your2elf after a niice long 2e22iion of 2tariing 2tupiidly at your computer and proviing yet agaiin that you are the wor2t excu2e for a hacker that the world ha2 ever 2een.  
TA: quiit iignoriing me KK, that ii2 a 2tupiid a22hole thiing two do.  
TA: you are the wor2t friiend two have and you are ba2iically a terriible per2on iin every way FUCK.  
TA: FUCK FUCK FUCK.  
TA: okay iim comiing over.

twinArmageddons [TA] ceased trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG]

You stare at your computer screen in dumbfounded disbelief. You have been trying to reach Sollux for three days. You cannot believe he picked the sole hour that you were well and fully occupied with your lusus to troll you in return and then freak the fuck out because he didn't get an instant response. What a needy, oversensitive asshole.

In other words, typical Sollux. What really has you surprised is that last line. Could he actually be serious about coming over? And if so, why? You have only seen Sollux in person a handful of times, and it has never come as a surprise like this.

Of course, given your choice, you would have seen a lot more of him over the sweeps. But it isn't your choice. Only Sollux can make the journey, so you're pretty much at the mercy of his whim on that one. And Sollux is usually too busy having a migraine or a meltdown for a long trip.

Or so it seems, anyway. But you have a wriggling suspicion you can never quite shake that he makes it out to see Aradia a lot more often.

You put this thought firmly out of your mind and sit down at your computer station to reply.

carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling twinArmageddons [TA]

CG: HEY ASSHOLE, HERE'S A NEWS FLASH FOR YOU.  
CG: THE WHOLE WORLD DOESN'T REVOLVE AROUND YOU.  
CG: AND NEITHER DOES MY LIFE.  
CG: I MEAN, WHAT DO YOU THINK I DO, SIT AT MY COMPUTER ALL DAY JUST WAITING FOR ONE OF MY PSYCHOTIC FRIENDS TO BUG ME.  
CG: LIKE, OH MAN, LET ME JUST SIT HERE STARING AT MY BLANK SCREEN AND HOPING TO HEAR FROM THE BIPOLAR GUY.  
CG: NO.  
CG: FUCK YOU.  
CG: I'M A BUSY GUY, I HAVE A LOT OF SHIT GOING ON THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU.  
CG: FOR YOUR INFORMATION, I WAS DEALING WITH MY LUSUS.  
CG: YOU SELF-ABSORBED JACKASS.  
CG: ALSO, QUIT BEING SUCH A NEEDY DOUCHE, IT'S UNBEARABLE.  
CG: BY THE WAY, ARE YOU ACTUALLY COMING OVER?

You stare moodily at your blank screen and hope to hear from the bipolar guy. You wonder if he could have left already. How long will it take him to arrive here? He lives almost a quarter turn around Alternia; it's a long trip, even for him.

You also wonder which Sollux you're going to get this time. You can never tell with that guy.

A soft clicking sound rouses you from your reverie. You turn toward your window.

And promptly leap out of your chair in surprise. He's hovering outside of it, tapping on the glass with one claw.


	2. Chapter 2

"What the fuck!" You look from him to the timestamp on his last message and back again. Your jaw drops. "How is that even possible?"

His tapping gets a little bit more insistent, and you cross your block to kneel and glare at him through the glass. "What the everloving fuck do you think you're doing out there?" You narrow your eyes. "Can you even hear me right now?"

He just says, "Hi KK, let me in." His voice is muffled by the glass, but still audible.

"How long have you been out there? That's a creepy piece of shit thing to do, to hang out at someone's window and watch them!"

"Right, because watching you be a useless tool is the best thing to do, that's exactly why I came. Let me in, or I'll let myself in."

You roll your eyes. "I have doors, you know," you retort. "Why don't you pretend like you're not a complete freak and go to one of them."

"Fine." He shoots upwards and vanishes. A second later, you hear him land on your extraterraneal landing slat. You cross the room and yank the door open before he has an excuse to do something dramatic.

He strolls into your respiteblock and strikes a pose, leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed. He grins at you. "Hi KK, I know you missed me."

Oh. So it's _that _Sollux. The one you have privately dubbed Blue Sollux. The one that's difficult to deal with.

"I know you tell yourself that so that you feel a tiny little bit less worthless," you reply. You hope he can't tell how unsettled you are. You are never prepared for Sollux's appearance in person.

It's hard to put your prong on exactly why that is. It's not like he's big; he stands a little bit shorter than you, and his build is what you would describe as "slight." He's not loud, either; he's soft-spoken, and he has that lisp on top of it. The dual-colored eyes are unnerving to be sure, but right now they're completely hidden behind his red and blue shades. His face is…well, admittedly kind of attractive, but in a weird way that almost borders on pretty. You think that by all rights, the sum of his parts should equal one of the most unassuming trolls you have ever laid eyes on.

But what he lacks in physical stature, he more than makes up for in sheer brooding intensity. The reality is that he intimidates the living fuck out of you, and you have no idea why.

Not that you would ever admit this to another living soul. Least of all him.

Sollux runs his fingers through his hair to settle it back in place. "It's good to see you too, asshole."

You glare at him suspiciously. "How the hell did you get here this fast?" you demand.

He raises his eyebrows. "Was that fast? For me that's a normal speed to go."

"Yeah right," you sneer in return. "Normal speed for you is lying in bed and not moving at all, moping about how terrible your life is. That's normal speed for you. Not a speed that actually involves moving or doing anything worthwhile."

That comment at least wipes the insufferably smug grin off of his face. He drops the pose and stalks across your room. "Well at least I don't spend all my time pretending to be an ace hacker but actually sucking at it, like a certain dumbass I could name." He hops up onto your computer station and makes himself comfortable, swinging his legs back and forth. "Really KK, who do you think you're fooling, we all know you couldn't hack your way out of a wet paper grubsack."

Now it's your turn to be nettled. "Oh, okay, I guess this is the part where I should be totally impressed by your amazing programming abilities." You hold one hand mockingly over your blood pusher and pretend to swoon. "Oh, look at the freak with the mutant brain and his incredible hacker skills, they are almost as impressive as his super psionic powers! I am so amazed by him that any second now, I may give in to an almost overwhelming urge to start fondling myself inappropriately and throw myself at his feet." You flop into your desk chair and lean back on two legs to look at your friend. "Too bad none of his other talents are anywhere near as impressive as his ability to be a self-centered, whiny nooksucker who likes to wallow in his own filth and has no redeeming qualities whatsoever."

You expect some fireworks in response to that, but Sollux just shakes his head and chuckles. "Eheheheh. You five-sweep-olds are so immature, it's sad how immature you are."

"What!" you exclaim indignantly, completely taken aback. The front legs of your chair crash to the floor as you sit up straight. "You just turned six _three days_ ago, you smug sack of shit!"

A slight smile touches his lips. "Three days is a long time to pass when you can see the things I can see," he says softly.

"Oh no." You hold up your hands and shake your head emphatically. "We are not doing this. I don't want to hear about your weird mutant brain and the fucked up crap that comes out of it. Just, no. I have heard more than enough of that from you to last a lifetime. So you know what? You can take that melodramatic bullshit and evacuate it straight through your protein chute. That's what you can do with that."

Sollux's face scrunches up in an acutely pained expression. He presses his fingers against his forehead, eyes squeezed tightly shut. "Oh KK, this is so stupid," he says through gritted teeth. "Can we please not be doing this anymore?" He shakes his head as if to clear it and opens his eyes. "Why do we always do this?"

"Maybe because you always act like a total drama queen," you retort angrily. Then you relent slightly and sigh. "But fine, I see your point. Might as well pull the grubtube on this one before it degenerates into a complete embarrassment." You cock your head up at him curiously. "What were you doing for the past few days, anyway? And don't tell me it was a three-day pity party wank fest, because that would be intolerable."

He snarls. The same teeth that give him that soft lisp also give him a really impressive snarl. "None of your fucking business!" he snaps.


	3. Chapter 3

You jerk back and hold your hands up in a gesture of surrender. "Wow, okay, fuck. Way to be completely and unnecessarily touchy over a question that was totally reasonable." You snort and shake your head. "Well, happy wriggling day anyway, just in case you didn't catch that from the three days' worth of messages I left you that you never responded to in any way whatsoever. Asshole."

Sollux turns away and suddenly gets very interested in the contents of your bookshelf. "I saw your messages, KK. I was just…occupied."

"Oh okay, well that explains everything. Thanks for that. I'm glad we could have this talk, you ungrateful, self-centered pile of week-old, festering grubloaf."

Once again, the explosion you expect doesn't come. Sollux just watches you for several seconds with those weirdly intense, mismatched eyes. Then he shakes his head and jumps down from your desk. "You'll understand when you turn six." He starts pacing restlessly around your block, touching your things in passing as he goes.

"Oh, sure. That sounds totally reasonable!" You get up and start trailing him. "Karkat can't understand anything because he's only _five, _he doesn't know shit. Meanwhile I, Sollux, am wise beyond words because of being an entire four bilunar perigees older. Put that down!" You slap his hand, and he drops the grub he just picked up back onto your shelf. Some of your more egregiously awful virus programming attempts are stored on there, and you don't want him anywhere near them.

He shrugs and moves on. "Something like that," he says. "You actually aren't too far off. For once."

"Right. And I suppose on my wriggling day I'll experience some major heaving enlightenment, and suddenly I'll see the world in a whole new way."

"Yes." He stops and turns, and you have to dance aside to avoid running into him head-on. "That is literally true, eheheheh you have no idea how much things will change when you turn six. Your wriggling day is going to be very important." You can only gape at the nonsense shitstream that is cascading from his mouth as he continues. "It will not be the same for you as it was for me, though. When you turn six, things will change for all of us. All of Alternia, actually. All trolls."

"Okay, time out. Time out on the melodramatic bullshit." You hold your hands up in a cut-off gesture. "That stopped making sense a long time ago. Right around when it started, actually. Let's stop talking about this and start talking about something that sane people talk about instead."

He snorts sourly and puts his hands on his hips as he watches you. "You know, KK, it's amazing how much you basically never listen to a fucking thing anyone says to you, ever."

"It's amazing how much everyone I know says useless garbage to me all the time!" you retort hotly. "Kind of like you were doing to me just a second ago. Boy am I glad that's over with."

Twin tongues of red and blue lightning crackle out of Sollux's eyes and up his horns, then vanish. He claps his hands to either side of his head and snarls silently. A few seconds pass before he relaxes and his eyes flutter open.

"What the fuck was that?" you demand, edging slowly away from him. "What's wrong with you?"

"Eheheh." He manages the ghost of a pained smile while he massages one temple with his fingers. "Are you sure you want to ask me that, you run the risk of opening the deluge barricades on my melodramatic bullshit garbage for crazy people."

"No that's the last thing I want. Forget I asked."

You wait, but he doesn't retort. He just watches you impassively.

You shift uneasily from hoof to hoof. He should be losing his shit right now, but all he's doing is standing there and looking sort of pained and tired. He isn't holding up his usual end of the conversational bargain, and it is kind of starting to unnerve you.

"Okay, look." You stomp across the room to lean back against the wall next to him, crossing your arms over your chest and glaring. "Why are you here? Is there a reason for it? Or did you just show up to be a moody fuck and throw fits in my hive?"

"No." Sollux shakes his head and steps away from the wall. "That isn't what I came here to do at all."

"Then what?" you demand impatiently.

Sollux faces you and smiles slightly. "I came here to do this." He rests one hand on the wall on either side of you and leans in.


	4. Chapter 4

You realize what he is doing an instant before his lips meet yours. You jerk backwards, cracking your head on the wall in the process, and shove his face frantically away with one hand on his jaw. "What the fuck is this!" you exclaim, surprise making it come out as almost a yelp. "What the fuck are you trying to do?"

He twists out of your grip easily and regards you with an amused grin. "I'm trying to kiss you, what the hell does it look like I'm trying to do?"

You splutter indignantly, momentarily too scandalized to even make a sentence. Finally you manage to choke out, "What? Shit, Sollux, why?"

"Why do you think, fuckpod?" he retorts. "I mean, really, that is such a stupid question to ask."

You don't think it's stupid. You think it is, in fact, the single least stupid question you could be asking right now. Sollux is your best friend, and this kissing nonsense has come straight out of nowhere.

Well, okay, maybe "out of nowhere" is too strong a phrase to use. It isn't as if you've never considered the idea. You guys are pretty close, after all. He only makes you want to punch things about half of the time, which is about half of the time less than any of the rest of your friends. You and he are natural candidates to develop flushed feelings for one another now that you're getting older. It's a romcom plot standard that you've seen so many times, you've lost track; in fact, you and Sollux even watched a few along those lines together during his last visit. For all he complained that it was a stupid waste of time, you just _know _that he was sitting there contemplating the exact same possibilities you were.

But it's never gone beyond mere speculation. You have always been ambivalent about Sollux. Ambivalent about his ambivalence, really. He only seems interested about half the time.

Surprise.

The other half of the time he spends gallivanting off with Aradia on whatever spooky, mopey, depressing shit they like to do together. You really have no idea how they spend their time. He's annoyingly private about it, and that really sticks in your nook. Another thing you will never admit out loud.

You try to collect your scattered thoughts and deal with the Sollux that's in front of you right now. "That was just really sudden. Don't you think we should, I don't know, talk about this first or something?"

He rolls his eyes. "Okay sure. Let's talk about it, since you love talking about things so much that you basically never shut your windhole about anything for two seconds, ever. In fact, let's shout about it at the top of our lungs, that's how you like to do things, right?"

"Oh, you're one to talk!" you retort defensively. "You whine about things more than all the rest of our friends combined! And anyway, it's a big step!"

"Fine," he sighs. He straightens and backs off a few steps, which at least gives you a little breathing room. He regards you with his head cocked to the side. "Let's get this over with, what has got your intimate garments into a twist?"

"Fuck you!" you retort. "Look, I just want to know, why now? I mean, there was sort of no build-up to this. There's supposed to be like…a date beforehand. And flirting. And stuff. Oh God." You break off in utter and complete embarrassment, looking anywhere but at him. "I can't believe you just made me say that out loud!"

"Eheheheh. Are you trying to pretend for some reason like you have never flirted with me?" Your eyes snap to him. He is covering his mouth with one hand and his shoulders are shaking. You realize he is laughing at you. He holds up an admonishing prong. "You can't trick me about that, I was there too, remember? Every time." He gives you a lopsided grin. "Pretty much by definition, actually."

"I don't know what you're talking about!" you shout in response. Then you cringe inwardly. That didn't sound convincing even to you.

"Sure you don't." Then he sobers. "Well, I know it's not quite like things you have seen in your stupid romance movies for girls. But now is the only possible time for us, KK."

You treat that non-answer as the meaningless bullshit it is and ignore it. "What about you and Aradia?"

As soon as the words leave your mouth, you regret them. You cannot believe you just let that steaming grubturd drop from your lips. You just poked your claw right into one of his touchiest subjects, and now it's out there like the rampaging cholerbear in the block that it is. You can't take it back.

You have virtually guaranteed an appearance from the _other _Sollux. Red Sollux. The one that's a nightmare to deal with.

You brace yourself for the shitstorm, but it doesn't come. To your complete surprise, Sollux just shrugs indifferently. "What about us?"

You lick your lips nervously. "Aren't you two…I mean…"

He snorts in amusement and disgust. "It doesn't matter," he says flatly. "Eheheheh KK, I can't even tell you how unimportant that is and how much basically nothing matters anymore."

"What the shitting shit is that supposed to mean?" you demand, eyeing him warily. "That doesn't mean anything, is what that means! That's just overdramatic garbage like you're always saying!"

"Eheheheh, KK, I can't figure out why you're being such a retarded wiggler about this when I know for a fact you've thought about kissing me."

You freeze, your eyes wide. "You _what?" _You hurriedly wrap your hands around your head, as if this might actually serve as some sort of barrier against him. "How do you know that? You said you couldn't read my thoughts! All this time you were just snooping through everything like a complete douche? You are such a lying sack of shit, that is unbelievably low even by your standards!"

He rolls his eyes at you. "I _can't_ read your thoughts, fuckwad, I've told you that like a billion times. I know it for a fact because you just confirmed it just now. That is pretty much the oldest trick in the reverse psychology book, really it's amazing how much of a fucking idiot you have to be to actually fall for it."

Your eyes widen as you realize how badly you just stepped in it.


	5. Chapter 5

"Shit." You need to sit down. You go back to your computer station chair and throw yourself into it. You rest your elbows on your knees and bury your fingers in your hair, staring blankly at the floor. Your blood pusher is really hammering, and you feel a little bit queasy. "Fuck."

"Eheheh, KK, don't take it so hard," Sollux chuckles as he crosses the room towards you. "We've always known that I'm smarter and better than you in every way."

A hand lands on your shoulder, and you start. Your head whips around to look up at him where he's standing just behind you. But as soon as you straighten, he slides sideways onto your lap. He rests one arm over each of your shoulders and laces his prongs together loosely behind your head.

You are frozen in place with surprise. He's _sitting on your lap, _you can't believe it. Your eyes are glued fixedly to his arm where it passes by your face, anything so that you don't have to make eye contact. You try to come up with something to say to defuse the moment, and completely fail.

He buries his fingers in your hair in front of your horns and runs his claws lightly over your think pan and down the back of your neck to your spinal lump, sending tingling waves radiating out across your skin. The sensation makes your lips part and your eyes roll back in your head, and suddenly you are immensely glad he can't see your face from this angle. He repeats it with both hands a few times, and each repetition drains more of your will to resist. After a minute, you give in to the inevitable. You look up and meet his eyes with your half-lidded ones.

He's so close. Just inches away from you. And he's staring at you, through you, with every bit of intensity that gaze holds. He runs his claws through your hair one more time and watches as your breath hitches and your eyes flutter shut. You know he is taking in every detail of the effect he is having on you, and you know it's written all over your face. But it's hard to hide it when you feel like you're melting from the inside out.

He rests one hand against your cheek and keeps the other buried in your hair. "KK," he says softly. "Are you ready?"

He moves a little closer, and your fingers clutch a handful of his shirt. "I'm a little nervous!" you blurt.

He pauses and tilts his head. "Why?"

"Because…well, I've never…I mean, it's my first time!"

"Oh," he says with a slight nod. "Mine too."

That catches you by surprise. "It is?" He nods again. Maybe you were wrong about him and Aradia after all. "Aren't you nervous then too?" you ask.

He shakes his head with a soft laugh. "Eheheh. Trust me, KK. On my list of things to be nervous about, a kiss doesn't even make the top hundred." He tilts your face upwards and rests his forehead against yours. You can feel his breath against your lips. You close your eyes.

"Okay," you breathe, your voice scarcely audible. "I'm ready."

A moment later, his lips touch yours.

He stays there for a few seconds, soft skin against yours, before pulling back. Then he brushes his lips across yours again. This time when he moves away, you open one eye a tiny slit so you can see him. You lean forward and upwards, seeking his lips with yours. You can feel him smiling before he kisses you back.

Seconds tick by. You are trembling. Sollux pulls back, and your breath escapes in a shaky gasp that has you totally embarrassed. You forgot to breathe that whole time. You open your eyes expecting to see Sollux laughing at you, but he's just watching you intently. At this close proximity, you can see through his shades to the mismatched eyes behind them.

He splays his fingers across your cheek and tilts your head upwards. This time when you meet, his tongue presses insistently against your lips. You part them nervously and allow him in. You don't know how to do this part, but you work it out gradually by feel. His tongue rubs against yours, flicks it, tugs at it. He certainly seems to know what he's doing. The distant part of you that's still thinking wonders if he was lying to you about this being his first time.

He breaks for just long enough to gasp out one shuddering breath against your lips before diving back in. Now you see how those things are supposed to go together. There are more logistics to this kissing thing than you came to appreciate from the movies.

You start to relax as it continues. Your hands, which have been clinging to the fabric of his shirt so tightly that they are bordering on being cramped, finally start to loosen. You let go, flatten your hands out against his back, run your fingers part way up his spinal nerve column. He throws his head back with a gasp and his fingers tighten against your skin.

His reaction is…kind of delightful. You do it again, and he arches into your touch and shivers. Then he laughs softly and rests his forehead against yours. You tighten your arms around his waist and pull him closer.

"KK," he breathes. He tilts his head so that a pair of his horns rests against one of yours. He runs the tip of one of his horns down the length of yours and back up again. You feel it as a deep rumbling vibration over your whole think pan that is pleasant, almost relaxing. You close your eyes.

Then he hornswipes you. It's not hard, more playful than anything else, but it's enough to knock your head to the side. An instant later, Sollux's teeth and tongue are grazing your jaw line all the way back to your ear.

It's also enough to make you extremely nervous. You pull back and turn your head away. "Okay, that's enough." You drop your embrace and instead push his hands off of you.

"What?" He's still trying to touch your face, your hair. "Why?"

"Because! That's just…enough!" You shove at his shoulder and push him off of you. He staggers a step before catching his balance. You shoot out of the chair and scurry out of your block, then dash up the stairs two at a time. You have no particular destination in mind, you are just eager to put some distance in between you.


	6. Chapter 6

You find yourself standing in your living block in front of your movie collection. You can hear Sollux's steps echoing up the staircase as he follows you, and he emerges into the block a moment later. "We shouldn't stop there," he says. "That's a terrible place to decide to stop."

"No, I think that's the perfect place to stop." You start rearranging your movies to hide your nerves.

"Oh, come on." Sollux is approaching you. "Who do you think you're managing to fool, KK? The only reason you want to stop is because you don't want me to learn what color your blood is."

"That has nothing to do with it!" you lie at the top of your lungs, whirling to face him. "Nothing at all!" You hope desperately that he can't tell that your words are nothing more than a giant, steaming pile of behemoth leavings. He has actually hit the attachment spike right on the head. Dismayingly so.

"Sure it doesn't." He stops in front of you with one hand on a hip and raises his eyebrows. "But use your puzzle sponge and actually think about this for two seconds. Do you really think I give a single fuck what color your blood is?"

"I said that's not what this is about!" you snap. "Anyway, sharing…you know, _that, _is way beyond just a kiss!" You eye him warily. "Sollux, what do you have in mind? I mean, what exactly do you want to do?"

Sollux shrugs. "I don't know. Everything, I guess. Why not?"

"_What?_" That is, prongs down, the most indecent thing anyone has ever said to you. "You can't be serious! This is a big bullshit joke, right? Having a little fun at Karkat's expense?"

Sollux cocks his head at you. "Why would I do that, that would not be a funny thing to do."

"That's never stopped you before!" you retort. "You're like the king of unfunny jokes delivered at inopportune moments!"

"No, KK." He shakes his head solemnly. "No joke. I meant that thing I just said."

You stare at him in complete disbelief. "There is nothing okay about that thing you just said!" you exclaim. "You can't just – you can't just come out and _say _it like that! I mean, do you realize that right now you're making Ampora's advances look subtle and shy in comparison? What the hell is wrong with you! Seriously, what are you even thinking?"

Sollux grins wryly. "When you know the things I know, it tends to change your perspective."

"Stop it!" You wave your hands angrily in the air in your agitation. "You do not get to blame this on your stupid mutant brain or whatever!"

"Why not, when my stupid mutant brain is the source? And anyway, you like me," he says calmly, as if the things he's saying are totally reasonable and no big deal at all. "And I like you, so why not?"

You splutter for a few seconds before you manage to choke out, "Augh I can't believe you would even ask that as a serious question! How are we even having this conversation right now!" You lean against the back of the couch and suck down a few deep breaths to calm yourself. You don't even know where to start in addressing such a ludicrous statement. "Okay, there are so many things that are fucked up and wrong about what you just said, but since you apparently want to pretend like this little chat is something other than an embarrassing farce, let's start with this one. Okay, here goes. For one thing, isn't it at least like…three sweeps too early?"

"Three sweeps? Eheheheh, that's funny." Sollux's lips twitch into a slight smile and he shakes his head. "If you had seen the things I've seen, you would know just how hilarious that comment is. And sad." He cocks his head to the side and regards you. "We don't have three sweeps, KK. Not even close to it."

You flail. "Perfect, more melodramatic bullshit, that is exactly what I want to hear right now! Really you're just making everything so much better, please keep going in this vein!"

Sollux narrows his eyes at you for a long moment, then shrugs. "Fine. But why wait? Just because you expect it to be another three sweeps before the imperial drone shows up – "

Suddenly and horribly, you realize where this sentence is going. "Sollux, no!" you gasp in dismay.

" – to take your collection for the filial p – "

"Shut the fuck up!" You cut off the mortifying tirade of filth spewing from your friend's windhole by the simple expedient of clapping your hands over his mouth.

This proves to be a major tactical blunder. One flick of his head, and those teeth slice a neat series of shallow, parallel cuts across your palm.

"Shit!" You yank your arm back immediately, but he moves like lightning to catch your wrist in both of his hands.

He continues speaking as nonchalantly as if he were never interrupted. "…doesn't mean we can't do whatever the fuck we want to now. It doesn't hurt anything. And it will be fun, which you would admit if you weren't such an uptight tool."

His words slide past you. You are struggling with all of your might to get free of his grip. He is unreasonably strong for his size. You can feel the blood pooling inside of your tightly-clenched fist, and panic is starting to rise within you.

Then your eyes flick to his face, and you freeze in utter horror.

There, right on the tips of his two longest teeth, are traces of incriminating, red blood.

He's already daintily licking one of them clean. As soon as his tongue darts back into his mouth, a thoughtful expression blooms on his face. Your digestion sac plummets. He recognizes the taste. He knows it's blood.

It's all over now.


	7. Chapter 7

A grin slowly spreads over Sollux's features. He _has _you, and you know it, and he knows you know it. The small feline creature is out of the bag.

Your insides feel like they have turned to a block of solid lead. You watch in mute dread as that tongue flicks out one more time and licks the other tooth. Sollux extends it all the way out of his mouth so that he can see what color graces its tip.

He pauses. He frowns. Then his jaw drops.

"KK!" He grabs furiously at your injured hand, trying to pry your fingers open. "Is this for real am I really seeing what I think I'm seeing?"

"Get off! Quit it! God damn it you spastic freak let me go!" You struggle against him, but it's no use. The horrible red liquid squeezes between your fingers and leaks out into the open for both of you to see.

Sollux gasps. "Oh my god."

You make one last-ditch, desperate effort to jerk out of his grip, and he counters by locking your arm in place with dancing tongues of red and blue lightning. He levers your fist open and runs his fingers slowly through the blood, then lifts his hand and turns it this way and that, staring raptly as the ghastly red liquid drips down his digits.

"Oh God!" Your head snaps away from the nauseating sight. "Stop it, stop it! Please, don't look at it!"

Sollux seems deaf to your anguished plea. His head swivels toward you and he pins you with a look comprised of shock, awe and accusation. "_Red, _KK? Your blood is _red _and you never told me?"

"Shut the hell up, I can't help it!" The prongs of your free hand dig deep into the soft fabric of the couch as you try fruitlessly to squelch your oncoming panic. You have never felt so much shame in your entire life. You wish you could just shrivel up and vanish, melt into the carpet and disappear forever. "Just look away! Just – please!"

"Red, it's a _true red_, fuck!" Before you can process what's happening, Sollux drops down on one knee and runs his tongue along the length of your cut palm. "True red, god, it's beautiful!" Then he buries his face against your hand, holding it tightly in place with both of his. "Oh god, fuck, I never thought I'd get to meet one but it turns out that all along, _you - _" He shivers convulsively, and his tongue flicks against your palm again. "You, KK!"

You can only stare in dumbfounded silence. This is so far from the reaction you expected that you can't even comprehend it. You feel light-headed.

Sollux lets go of you with his mind lightning and instead laces his fingers tightly through yours. He looks up and meets your eyes. Your blood is on his lips, his tongue, his teeth, his chin; a sight that is simultaneously terrifying and thrilling. Terrifying, because your humiliating secret is being displayed so prominently. Thrilling, because it speaks to something in you that lies far deeper than your conscious mind. Something primal.

You have never felt so overwhelmed in your entire life.

Sollux cocks his head at you, and now his face holds bewilderment and hurt. "You know how I feel about red, KK. Why did you keep this from me for all these sweeps?"

You open your mouth, but no words come out. You have no retorts, no curses, no insults. You certainly have no answers. Right now, you've got nothing at all. You can't tell if this is a huge weight lifted off of your shoulders, or if it's an enormous loss. It's overwhelming, is what it is. That is all you know for sure right now.

Sollux brings your hand to his cheek and molds your fingers against the curve of his face beneath the red half of his shades. He looks up at you imploringly. "Why, KK?" he murmurs. He rubs his face against your hand and shivers. "How could you think I wouldn't love it?"

Your response, when it comes at last, tears its way out of your chest in something akin to a scream and leaves you gasping raggedly in its wake.

"Because I'm a complete fucking freak of nature! Okay? Are you satisfied? I'm a total genetic fucking freak!"

To your immense surprise, Sollux breaks the silence that follows this proclamation with a soft chuckle. He brings your palm to his lips and kisses it gently, then gives you a lopsided grin. "Well," he says quietly. "That makes two of us."

You stare. Your greatest secret, revealed. All those sweeps of hiding it, over. All the barriers you put up between yourself and even your closest friends, gone; shattered into a million pieces and whipped away on the breeze, nothing more than tiny crystalline dust on the wind. You stand before him exposed, naked down to your very core. He has seen exactly what you are.

And he hasn't turned away from you. He is still here, touching you. Holding you. Wanting you.

The deluge barricades open. You launch yourself at Sollux.


	8. Chapter 8

Sollux's eyes widen as you crash into him and yank his face to yours. Your kiss is heated, frantic, desperate, and he returns it in kind. When you break he laughs, a sound that quickly cuts off in a yelp when you sink your teeth into his lower lip.

You pull back and watch the yellow blood well up and out. You touch it, spread it across his lips with your bleeding palm, and stare at the results. Red and yellow mingle together on the black palette of his lips in a beautiful mess of a hundred different shades of orange, each sliding smoothly into the next.

The first stage of the mixing of colors is complete, both a bond and a preview of what's to come. This is something you feared you might never be able to do, and in its execution it is extremely powerful. The stunning sight leaves you breathless and transfixed.

Sollux is gazing in rapt fascination at the bright colors blending and slowly fusing into orange on your hand. His tongue flicks out and explores the place where you just bit him, then runs along his lower lip, tasting the mixture there. He catches your eyes, then leans in and brushes his lips languidly across yours in something that is almost a kiss. Blood makes his skin slick against yours. He pulls back just far enough to see the product.

You watch as his lips part and his breath quickens. He brings one finger up and touches your lower lip, and he shivers against you. "Oh, fuck KK," he breathes. His eyes meet yours, and his gaze is filled with pure desire.

That sight unfreezes you. You surge forward and kiss him hard, desperate to slake the deep thirst that has opened up inside of you. Momentum has him stumbling backwards, and he wraps one arm around your neck and takes you with him. You grab him and hold him so tightly that your claws tear through his shirt and pierce the skin of his back and shoulders, and he gasps and arches into your touch. He buries his fingers in your hair and clutches a fistful of it.

Then he nips at the tip of your tongue. You react instinctively to the sudden dart of pain by jerking out of his grip and hornswiping him. He spins aside and has to grab the couch to keep from losing his balance. The back of your think pan is stinging like crazy, and you realize that your tongue is bleeding.

Of course, that was the point. He wants you both bleeding. Sollux grins unrepentantly as he shakes his prongs free of the hair he just tore from the back of your head. He closes the distance between you and leans in to kiss you deeply.

You growl and stretch to your full height in order to hook one of your horns into a pair of his. It fits surprisingly well between them, and it stops him from turning his head. He tries to pull free, but you push forward and don't let him. He staggers back two steps before he recovers his balance and pushes back against you in kind. Your fingers lock with his, simultaneously shoving him away and holding him close.

"If that's what you want – " You run your tongue across his lips, lapping up yellow and leaving red in your wake, spreading the striking mix of colors across his skin. Every glimpse of orange sends an electrical charge crackling through you, from your chest out to the tips of your fingers and toes. There is no turning back now. You want him.

He laughs breathlessly, his eyes shining as he watches your tongue move. "Orange," he murmurs. "It's my new favorite color!" He surges forward and succeeds in knocking you back a few steps before you can compensate. You growl deep in your throat as you brace yourself and halt him from any further advances.

He narrows his eyes at you. "You know, KK…" He disentangles one hand from yours and reaches up to fondle your free horn. "You aren't half bad at this for having such nubby little horns."

You snarl and snap your head to the side and throw him, actually _throw_ him. His feet leave the floor for a second before he hits your bookshelf and tumbles to the ground amidst a shower of falling movies.

Seeing him down sends a surge of exhilaration through you. First fall belongs to you, as will every stage of this fight. You grin as you stalk him, circling him slowly. "What was that you were saying about my horns?" you taunt. "Say it again, just see where it gets you!"

Sollux sits up and meets your gaze. "That was good!" He takes a moment to inspect a fresh shallow cut on his forearm where it hit the corner of your bookcase. He wrinkles his nose and sticks his tongue all the way out to lick it. Then he shakes his arm out and leans back on his hands, giving you a lopsided grin. "But I was just teasing about your horns, KK. I actually think that your nubby horns are…" His grin turns to a smirk. "Kind of cute."

Cute. That is _not _the adjective you want to hear right now.

"Fuck you!" you snarl at him, pinning him with your most furious glare of burning rage. "Fuck you and the hideous, undulating, slimy mother grub's asshole you slithered out of!" You halt in front of him and drop your voice to a low, threatening growl. "Cute_. _Is _not. _ What I am. Do you understand me."

He tilts his head up at you curiously, still maddeningly unintimidated by the threat you pose. "Then what are you, KK?"

You bare your teeth and stare down your nose at him. What you are is dangerous_. Fierce_. Intimidating. Awe-inspiring. Fearsome. Impressive. Vicious. You are a deadly warrior, no less than the up-and-coming future leader of Her Imperial Condescension's Threshecutioners, the dread battalion that is whispered of in hushed tones of muted terror throughout the galaxy. _That _is what you are. Not _cute, _like a wiggler you pat on the head.

And you will fucking well prove it.

Adrenaline courses through you and crystallizes into burning, red-hot, iron-hard determination. You'll fucking show him! He will regret those words before the end of the night. You will _make _him take them back.

"What am I," you repeat aloud. "You want to know?" You laugh harshly. "Good, because you're about to fucking find out!"

You spring at him.


	9. Chapter 9

Sollux turns out to be more prepared than he looks. He launches himself diagonally through the air, ducking underneath your arms and sailing past your torso. His outer horn slices through the side of your shirt and opens a shallow cut in your skin as he passes. You twist in midair with a hiss of pain and land in a crouch, managing to keep your balance despite the treacherously shifting pile of fallen movies you have landed in.

Sollux is not so lucky. His hand comes down squarely on a disc, and it slides out from under him. He hits the ground gracelessly and rolls once before coming to a halt. He sits up, shaking his head to clear it.

His fleeting moment of defenselessness is all you need. You pounce on him.

He senses you coming and tries to scramble away, but to no avail. You are faster. You land on him and knock him backwards, and he braces himself with one hand to keep from being bowled completely over. You straddle his thighs and shove at his shoulder, your other hand grappling against one of his.

You snatch a quick kiss from his lips. Then you swipe his cheekbone hard with one of your horns and prove that, shape notwithstanding, they're perfectly capable of drawing blood.

Sollux gasps and instinctively claps his free hand over the wound, leaving himself momentarily unsupported and vulnerable. You head butt his chest and knock him onto his back, then surge forward and slam his shoulders against the ground with your hands. There you still, breathing heavily as you use your body weight to keep him firmly pinned.

He stares up at you with wide, startled eyes, his mouth hanging open in a perfect O as he pants. He didn't expect that.

You smirk down at him, feeling immensely pleased with yourself. He may have a slight advantage in the horns arena, but you have the size advantage everywhere else. Also, you are a master tactician and a hatched leader. He's fooling himself if he thinks he stands a chance against you.

You press your lead by seizing his outer horns with your hands and shoving them against the ground, tilting his head sharply backwards and leaving his neck exposed. He yelps in surprise at the maneuver. You lean down to nip at his chin, opening up a trail of tiny yellow bite marks along his jaw and down his neck. He cries out and jerks against you each time your teeth break his skin. For a second you think you have him, and you silently congratulate yourself on how easy it was.

But your gloating turns out to be premature. He's not ready to give in yet. He twists his head and breaks out of your grip with dismaying ease, his horns opening up twin slashes on one of your wrists in the process. You jerk back with a curse, and suddenly you understand why none of the heroes of your favorite romcoms ever tried that move. Pitting flesh against horns is a proposition doomed to failure.

Sollux darts up and forward with those sharp horns, and you are forced to recoil to avoid taking a worse blow to your face or neck. Your shift in position gives him enough latitude to get a knee underneath your torso and shove you away.

You roll and use the momentum to carry you to your feet, then spin to face your friend. Sollux is scrambling frantically into a defensive crouch, one hand on his cheek where you cut him. His eyes are glued to you, tracking your every move. All traces of his prior flippant demeanor are gone, replaced with alert wariness.

You have successfully managed to wipe the insufferable smile right off of his face. Round one belongs to you. He won't be blowing you off again any time soon, that's for sure; you sense that he just got serious.

You grin fiercely at him. "How do you like my nubby horns now, huh?" you demand as you begin circling him.

He straightens slowly and drops his hand to his side, chest heaving as he tries to catch his breath. He is completely disheveled; his skin is coated with a fine sheen of sweat; his usually calm hair is disarranged in a messy cloud around his head. His shirt hangs in ribbons from his narrow shoulders, edged in yellow blood each place you've broken his skin. His lip has stopped bleeding where you bit it, but you can still see the thin yellow cut against his black skin.

The look suits him, you think. Despite the cuts and bruises, he has never been more attractive to you than he is right now. He looks..._alive, _somehow_._ For once he's not being aloof and secretive, he's not checked out in front of a computer screen. He is here with you, every bit of his vital energy fully present and engaged.

You like that. You _want _that, you want to possess it, to hold it in your hands and taste it on your tongue.

And you will. Very, very soon.

He narrows his eyes as he regards you, and a slight smile returns to his lips. "Better by the second," he admits softly. He matches his movements to yours, pacing you as you stalk one another. He cocks his head and studies you with a measuring gaze. "You know, I think I may have underestimated you."

"Someone give the man a cookie for his astute observation," you reply, sarcasm dripping from your words. You move closer to him with every step you take. His presence tugs at you, drawing you inexorably forward through an invisible bond that is shrinking by the second and will soon disappear entirely. It is a dance that has only one inevitable outcome.

"You know, you aren't too bad at this either," you sneer. "The best part was when you almost put up a fight for a second there!"

He laughs, low and breathy. "Oh, KK. You haven't even _seen_ me try to put up a fight." He runs his tongue over the tips of his sharp upper teeth and smirks. "Yet."

Your progress has brought you nearly within arm's reach of him. Your nostrils flare as you catch his scent, and your breath quickens. He is your prey now, and you will take him down. Your blood is singing in your veins as you approach what you know to be the closing stretch of this fight.

"You're going down, you know," you state flatly.

Sollux halts and faces you, hands on hips as he tilts his head down to eye you over the top of his shades. "Like hell," he growls.

You still and plant your feet firmly in front of him. You are mere inches away from him now, and the air between you fairly crackles with tension as you stare each other down.

You draw yourself up to your full height and modulate your voice to carry every bit of intensity and force that you can muster. Then you deliver an order that is as primal and powerful as it is simple.

"Give," you command.

A smile blooms on Sollux's lips. He lifts his chin defiantly and leans in so close that you can feel the heat radiating from his skin. His lips brush teasingly against yours as he gives you his response.

"Make me," he breathes.


	10. Chapter 10

You lunge forward with a growl and make a grab for those insolent lips, but this time he's a fraction of a second ahead of you. He ducks back, and your teeth snap shut on air. An instant later, he lands a hornswipe so hard it makes your think pan rattle. You stagger sideways, momentarily stunned. He wasn't kidding about upping his game.

You regain your balance when you stumble shoulder-first into the wall. You spin to face Sollux immediately, but your moment of weakness has already given him an opening. You don't have time to even widen your eyes before he dives at you.

He throws one forearm across your chest and slams you back into the wall, propelled by the momentum of his running start. You choke as the wind is knocked out of you. He smashes his lips roughly against yours, and you wheeze desperately for air against him. Then he catches your lower lip between his teeth and tugs at it hungrily, his grip shaky with desire. It's not enough to break your skin, but it's enough to hurt, and you growl your defiance.

You finally manage to catch your breath, and you _want _him. You wrap your arms around his waist and yank him against you, returning his kiss full force, your tongue seeking desperately after his.

He responds by immediately breaking the kiss and pulling back, to your immense frustration. He gives you the briefest of coy grins before he ducks his head and plants his hands firmly on the wall on either side of your chest.

For a second, you are perplexed by his choice of positioning. It will clearly be a piece of grubloaf for you to break this hold, and you briefly wonder what he's thinking. Then you feel a sharp prick just beneath your chin, and you freeze.

"Let's review," says Sollux sweetly, and you can hear his smirk even though you can't see his face. "Which one of us isn't putting up a fight?"

"Fuck you, Captor," you snarl. You grab his shoulders and shove at him, but he counters by lifting his head a fraction of an inch. You tilt your head backwards with a gasp as the sharp tip of his horn pierces your skin and draws a tiny drop of blood.

"Bold words, considering your position," he says smugly. His tongue finds its way into one of the now plentiful holes in your shirt and begins exploring your chest. You shiver from head to toe, but your resolve doesn't waver. You dig your claws into his upper arms as you push at him, and he lifts his horns even higher in response. You are forced onto your tip-toes to stay in one piece, and he laughs as he playfully drags the tip of his horn along your throat.

Your breath freezes in your chest and you grit your teeth, blood pusher hammering in your chest. It is infuriating that he has trapped you with this unorthodox tactic. You can't let this go on.

You lift your chin up and jerk to the side, craning your neck as far as it will go an in effort to clear his horns. Your movement knocks his hands free from the wall, and he clutches the sides of your shirt instead. He moves with you as he tries to keep you pinned in a position that is precarious at best, and suddenly both of you are off balance. You stagger sideways, sliding along the wall. Movie posters flutter unheeded to the floor in your wake. You grit your teeth and strain even higher. You are almost free –

And then, abruptly, there is no more wall behind you. Both of you go down in a tangle of limbs. You are tumbling down a flight of stairs, but you barely notice; your attention is thoroughly absorbed by Sollux as you struggle to keep your grip on him. You spill out into your respiteblock and roll across the floor, and your gaze meets his as you each fight to be the one that comes out on top.

To your chagrin, Sollux manages to plant a knee firmly on the ground and halt the roll while you are flat on your back. He smirks down at you as you grab at his wrists, trying unsuccessfully to break his grip. He feints toward your arm with his horns, and you drop your grip right away. Your soft parts don't need to learn that lesson a second time. Those horns are the real threat, you get that now. You neutralize them; you win. It's as simple as that.

He darts forward, and you surge upwards and meet his horns with yours. He is trying to pin you, but despite his superior position, he doesn't have the bulk to make it happen. He bares his teeth in a snarl as he strains against you with everything he has.

Seconds pass as the two of you struggle silently. Your gazes are locked as you fight, both of you panting desperately with exertion and excitement. Your horns creak ominously against his and your neck muscles feel like they're about to burst, but neither of you gives.

Stalemate.

Time for a new strategy. You have been using your hands to grapple with his shoulders in a fruitless effort to knock him off of you. Now you drop that grip and move them to his hips instead. You give him a tiny smirk as a warning. Then you squeeze with all ten claws.

He flinches as they sink into his skin, and that tiny lapse in balance is more than enough. You sling your head sideways throw him completely off of you. He tumbles to the ground on his back and you pounce before he has a chance to recover.

You ignore the hands he throws up to try to block you as the red herring that they are and go straight for his horns. You jam one of yours in between a pair of his, cracking your forehead painfully against his in the process, and slam his head to the ground. It is not the most elegant maneuver in the history of troll romance, you will admit, and it has you both snarling in pain; but it gets the job done. Sollux struggles beneath you for several seconds before emitting a brief shriek of defeat and going still.


	11. Chapter 11

You bellow triumphantly, and Sollux squeaks in surprise beneath you. You are cheek-to-cheek, nose-to-nose, eye-to-eye; the blue lens of his shades is smashed painfully in between your faces. The rush of victory is coursing through you, sending you soaring. You start to laugh. In this moment, you are the most powerful, invincible hero that has ever lived.

"Got anything to say for yourself now, Captor?" you demand condescendingly, prolonging the moment, unable to resist the urge to gloat.

"Yes, yes – " he gasps. "You win! I give! I – ah!" His voice jumps an octave as you jerk his head to the side and shake him viciously, just because you can. "I give I give I give!"

"Still want to call me _cute_?"

"Yes! No! Wait – " His eyes go wide as you show your displeasure by biting at his cheek. Your teeth scrape across his slick skin, unable to gain purchase. "I don't know!" he wails. "What's the answer you want me to say? I'll say anything, just tell me what you want me to say!"

You smirk. "What I want," you growl, pinning his wrists on either side of his head with slow deliberation, "is for you to shut the fuck up."

He does so instantly, his jaw snapping closed with an audible clack.

This is it. The moment that every adolescent troll dreams of: to have another troll hornlocked and helpless beneath you. This is what it's all about. This is the bit in the romcom where it tastefully fades to darkness, and then cuts back in the next morning to reveal a pair of bruised, bloodied and deliriously happy newly-matesprits. You are a few thin layers of clothing away from the real deal.

But you hesitate. Because even as you pant in the heat of the moment, even after how hard you fought to get here, you are dimly aware that this isn't the way you pictured this happening. It's too soon, too out of the blue. You never made a decision about whether or not Sollux is the right one for you; you just got swept up in the tide of events, and now here you are. An unwelcome realization breaks over you like a glass of cold water: a scant hour ago, you weren't even sure if you wanted Sollux to _kiss _you.

You're only _five sweeps old, _for fuck's sake. This is insanity.

Sollux detects your hesitation immediately, of course. There's no way he could miss it, not the way you're pressed against him. His blue eye narrows slightly beneath the shades. "What is it, KK?" he murmurs urgently. "You know what to do, right?" His tongue darts out and flicks against your lips, and his eyes flutter shut. "_Anything you want to_," he breathes.

You shiver convulsively, but still you hold back. "Are you really sure about this?" you gasp.

Sollux growls. He feints towards your chin, making as if to try to break your hold on him. Your reaction is immediate and instinctive. You slam his head back down and tighten your hornlock, twisting his neck into an awkward position. He yelps, then giggles hoarsely, caught between pain and desire. "See?" he says. He laps at the salty sweat on your cheek in between words. "You want to."

He's right. The next time that tongue comes out, you are ready for it. You catch it between your teeth and hold it, tightening your grip bit by bit. Sollux gasps, then cries out when you draw blood. You go just a little bit deeper to prove your point and hold him there, tasting and watching as the yellow liquid flows downwards and spatters his face. His eyes roll back in his head and his claws dig into the backs of your hands as he arches upwards. Only when he squeaks and writhes desperately against you do you release him. His tongue snaps back into his mouth and he stills, shaking.

Your conquest is complete. Beneath you, Sollux is radiating submission in every way. You've read about this moment in novels, but now you are stunned by how poorly those descriptions stack up to the reality. In real life, submission is so much more than a mere posture. It's also the soft, halting, desperate mewling sounds that escape from his lips as he waits for you. Submission has a _scent _to it, a sharp, sweet edge in the shallow breaths he pants frantically against your lips. It has a _feel _to it, something that sets you tingling everywhere you and he are touching. The mangled clothing between you is no barrier whatsoever; your skin is on fire. It has a _taste _to it, an indescribably delicious tang that coats every inch of his skin. Your tongue cannot get enough, you don't think you will _ever _have enough; it's maddening, overwhelming, pushing you to the very brink of frenzy. Submission speaks to all five of your senses, and it does so in a voice loud enough to drown out all else.

Your claws could make quick work of that pesky clothing. You would never even need to let Sollux out of the hornlock. Mere seconds from now, you could _have _him. _All_ of him.

Yours_._

Amidst the symphony of overwhelming sensation, a note of discord. There was something. This thing. From earlier.

Earlier feels like another planet. You can barely remember if there _was_ an earlier. The whole universe is this, you and Sollux and Sollux begging for you with every pore of his being. This is all there is, all there was, all there ever will be.

No. It was important. You should remember.

You seize onto that thought with both fists and refuse to let it go. You claw your way inch by perilous inch back toward rational thought.

Sollux shudders and emits a thin, high-pitched keen of abject frustration. "KK, come on!" he hisses through gritted teeth. He pulls his wrists free in order to slip his hands under your shirt and up your spine, setting your skin ablaze in the wake of his claws. His tongue is tracing your lips again, daring you with each slick, heated touch to force it into stillness. Every instinct in your body aches to lunge for the bait.

You clamp down on instinct, clinging to the ragged edge of self-control. You manage to tilt your head a tiny bit, and then a tiny bit more, and then the feeling of his tongue against your skin is no longer completely overpowering.

"No," you somehow choke out between gasps. "It's – too soon!" A few more agonizingly long seconds drag by before you can manage the rest. "Too sudden!"

Sollux screams.

Just like that, the white-hot connection is severed. The charged, searing energy that glued you to him, that set all of your senses on fire, vanishes in an instant as his submission evaporates.

It's agonizing. You are asphyxiating; the air is being sucked right out of your lungs. You are dying of dehydration in the middle of a desert, and someone just knocked the life-saving glass of ice water out of your grip. You are on your knees, watching its shattered remnants seep away into the sand and take your hope for survival with it.

It feels like death. Your voice joins Sollux's in a howl of lament.


	12. Chapter 12

Mercifully, the sensation is short-lived. It dissipates, and you are left reeling in its wake, stunned and incoherent. You struggle to your hands and knees, sucking on air desperately as you try to remember who and what you are.

"Too sudden? _Too sudden?_" You vaguely register Sollux's furious snarl as he dashes the blood from his face with the back of one hand. "What is it, KK? Not enough foreplay for you? You want to have a _real _fight on your hands?"

You don't catch his movement until one prong has already tipped his shades down to reveal a slice of glowing, mismatched eyes. Then a blast of red and blue energy catches you full on.

You go flying across the room and crash into the far wall, where you tumble to the floor and land in a painful heap. For a moment you lie there, your mind blank as your sluggish brain tries to catch up with your new circumstances. You flounder to your hands and knees, but then the next wave of psionic lightning hits you. This one hurls you sideways to slam into your computer station; you wince as the corner jabs painfully into your shoulder. Back issues of Game Grub flutter to the floor around you as you hit the ground.

This time, you are quicker out of the gate. You roll into a crouch and spin to face your friend. Sollux is hovering in midair, surrounded by a storm of flickering red and blue lightning. It crackles all around him, sending tendrils licking out to crawl across the walls and ceiling before they dissipate. The dramatic light show is taking up half the room; it's making your hair stand on end.

At the center of it all are those eyes; those freakish, glowing, mismatched eyes. They are shining so brightly that it looks like he has no pupils at all; just solid-colored, luminous orbs where eyes should be. The overall effect is completely otherworldly.

And utterly terrifying.

Those eyes are currently trained unwaveringly on you. He slowly straightens his arm and lets the shades drop, forgotten, from his fingertips.

You don't need to be the romance expert you are to understand what has happened here. You curse silently at yourself. You should have _known _that he would flip from red to black just as quickly and dramatically as he oscillates between moods.

It dawns on you belatedly that you just did something incredibly stupid. You should never have hesitated when you had the upper horn. He's not about to let you get it back.

"Sollux," you begin, holding your hands up placatingly. "Listen – "

He snaps his fingers. You are picked up off your feet and thrown again, this time into your cocoon. Impacting its hard, outer husk knocks the breath out of you, but you don't dare stay still. You scramble to all fours just in time to dodge a blast of energy. It hits the wall near you with enough force to shake your hive as you dive out of its way. You somersault to your feet and whirl –

Only to find yourself face-to-torso with actual Sollux. You were so preoccupied with his psionic attacks that you lost track of his physical presence. You jerk back, but not quickly enough. He cracks you in the chin with one knee, snapping your teeth painfully shut on half of your tongue and sending you staggering.

"Is this better?" he sneers mockingly as he floats slowly towards you. "Is this doing it for you, Karkat?"

You spit blood and back up step by step as he advances, using one hand to massage some feeling back into your jaw. This is bad, and getting worse by the second. You weren't ready for his flushed advances; you sure as _hell _aren't ready for a caliginous one. You and he have never had so much as a spark of genuine black chemistry between you, not even when he's at his most insufferable. You have no business in this quadrant with him.

You glance around yourself furtively, hoping for a clear path to an exit, but you see none. Sollux is between you and the staircase; the other door leads to your extraterraneal landing slat, where another blow like the one you just took could send you flying off the roof and onto the hard concrete below.

You do, however, spot your sickle sitting on your night stand out of the corner of your eye. You alter your course subtly to take you near it.

Sollux laughs. "Oh Karkat. So predictable." He snaps his fingers again, and the sickle lifts off of your desk in a cloud of flickering, colored energy. "I don't think so." He sends it slicing through the air to bury itself in the opposite wall, flying so close by your face on its way that you can feel the wind of its passage. Your blood pusher skips a beat and you freeze to the spot.

Sollux floats to a halt in front of you and hauls you forward by what remains of your shirt. You grab his wrist and grapple with him, trying to pull away, but he's augmenting his grip with his psionics. All the physical strength in the world wouldn't avail you now. His lips are twisted into an amused smirk as he watches you struggle, and panic is starting to rise in you.

"Damn it, Sollux!" you exclaim, looking pleadingly into the depthless red and blue planets that are his eyes. "Quit it! This is the wrong quadrant for us, and you fucking know it!"

"Shut the fuck up," he replies coldly. He brings his face close to yours and pins you with that terrible gaze. You still nervously, blood pusher hammering as you wait to see what he is going to do to you.

His next move catches you by surprise. He puts one hand on your cheek, fingers splayed, and kisses you very lightly on the lips.

He stays there for long seconds, lips and tongue brushing teasingly against yours. You aren't prepared for this sudden gentleness; you have no defenses against it. Despite your fear, or maybe heightened by it, his touch has the power to melt you to slag. Your eyes roll back in your head as you press yourself against him, part your lips for him. You kiss him back.

For a moment, things are exactly as they should be. You begin to feel cautiously optimistic.

Then he jerks back and slaps you open-palmed across the face. You hiss in pain and dismay as you lurch aside. He grabs a handful of your hair and yanks your head back so he can run his tongue along the fresh cuts his claws just opened up on your cheek. You whimper as your knees go weak; you have to clutch at him for support. You can't handle this bewildering mix of alternating kindness and cruelty, pleasure and pain. It's making your think pan spin.

Sollux laughs softly and twists your head further back so he can nip from the base of your neck up, his hot breath playing across your skin. "Let me know when you have had enough," he murmurs sweetly into your ear.

You squeeze your eyes tightly shut as you shiver. You can't back this fight out of blackrom territory; he won't let you. The choice facing you now is painfully simple: you can either give, or you can fight. That's it.

The words leap to the tip of your tongue, hovering there, already clamoring to get out. On some deep level you know that you are being toyed with, that you are hopelessly outmatched in this fight. But you refuse to accept that. A true hero never gives up. No matter what.

Your eyes snap open and you snarl at him. Then you sink your teeth into the sinewy muscle of his shoulder all the way down to the quick.


	13. Chapter 13

Sollux screams in pain and rage and starts thrashing, raining blows down indiscriminately on your head and back until you let go. He spins away from you, clutching at his shoulder, inadvertently losing altitude until one foot scrapes against the floor. He staggers, flails for balance, trips, and finally comes to a clumsy halt crouched in front of your computer desk. You spit out a strip of torn black fabric and wipe yellow blood from your lips and chin.

"God damn it Vantas!" he shrieks as he bounces back to his feet. "You fucking pile of rancid hoofbeast shit! You'll fucking regret that!" His face is contorted into a rictus of pure fury as he advances on you, this time striding across solid ground. He's bleeding profusely from that shoulder, the blood forming a slick that has drenched half of his shirt. His sign has been rendered unreadable. All of the red and blue theatrics have ceased, and the room is lit only by the blue glow of your computer screen as he approaches. "You just made a huge fucking mistake – I don't think so!" You attempt to drop into a defensive crouch, but he's having none of it. He lets go of his injured shoulder and holds out one bloodstained hand, and you are knocked bodily onto the floor.

You land, prone, your whole torso glued in place with invisible forces. Now it's your turn to thrash as you try to break free, but you can't move even an inch. You're trapped.

You freeze when Sollux stalks into your field of vision. He halts with one foot on either side of your ankles and stares down at you, hands on hips, lip curled. His eyes burn with cold hatred, piercing through you like twin lances, making you tremble. You honestly didn't think he had it in him, hate that powerful.

Sollux drops to his knees, then to all fours. The forces holding you in place have now grabbed your legs as well, leaving you helpless as he crawls forward over you. He stops with his knees on either side of your hips and his hands next to your chest, between your arms and body. His face is right above yours, and for a moment all you can do is lie there and be helplessly transfixed by his gaze. You can _feel _the hate coming off him in waves, breaking over you, demanding that you answer it in kind. You are starting to shiver.

You grit your teeth as you fight the rising tide. You realize, belatedly, that your hands are still free, and bring one up to shove frantically at his chin.

"Wow, fuck, seriously? You're still fighting?" He glowers in annoyance as he yanks your hand off of his face and slaps it away. "You need to fucking learn when you've lost!" He balls the prongs of one hand into a fist and pulls it back. Then he punches you square in the nose.

Your face explodes in searing agony. You see stars. You open your mouth to cry out and end up coughing as blood runs into it. You blink frantically as you try to convince both your vision and your sponge to quit being so fuzzy. Sollux takes advantage of your groggy semi-surrender to wrestle both of your wrists to the ground above your head and pin them there with psionic bonds. He keeps his hands over yours, lacing his prongs through yours in a cruel mockery of flushed tenderness.

You finally manage to refocus your eyes and find Sollux's face hovering mere inches above yours. He smiles down at you for a moment before burying his face in the small space between your upper arm and your head. You gasp as you feel first his lips, then his teeth against your ear. "Let me give you a hint," he murmurs, running his claws lightly down your palms and along the exposed undersides of your arms. "It was some time ago already."

"Sollux – " You break off in a yelp as his tongue flicks into your ear, momentarily drowning sound in wet heat. The sensation is surprisingly sweet and so intense that it probably could have turned you to quivering jelly in another context, but right now it's just invasive and confusing, threatening to fry the already crossed wires in your pan. You try to press your head against your arm, closing that space and squeezing him out of it. "Stop it! Let me go!"

He sits up and rests one hand on your chest. The other is still curled up in a fist. He is looking down at you, eyebrows raised and head cocked. "Well?" he prompts. "Have anything to say to me?"

"Okay I give!" you exclaim as fast as you can, because his expression says he'll do it again. "Fuck! I give, I do!"

"That's better," he says with a smirk. He grabs your chin and tilts your face upwards for a deep kiss. Then he darts forward and hornlocks you as easily as tearing the wings off a butterfly.

Your breathing starts to pick up speed as you stare into his red eye. Panic is threatening. "Come on, Sollux," you plead in a desperate whisper. "You don't really hate me! You're just mad!"

He chuckles. "Are you so sure?" He leans in closer to lick some of the blood from your upper lip.

"Fuck, oh – oh fuck – " The words are torn from your unwilling lips in a deep groan. You try not to arch up into him, try not to meet his tongue with yours, but your traitor body has ideas of its own. It knows dismayingly well how to respond to a caliginous hornlock, and it doesn't want to be denied. Part of you is screaming to give in to the inevitable, to surrender yourself to him and be swept up in the natural finale to this fight. Part of you wants this so badly there are no words for it. If Sollux were your kismesis, this would be solid gold; the stuff legendary romantic tales are made of.

But he's not, and you know it. And that's making this situation terrible and terrifying instead of amazing. You resist with all you've got, fighting against yourself just as desperately as you were struggling against him a short while ago. You manage to keep your head above water, if only just. At the very least, you _know _you aren't broadcasting submission the way he was earlier.

"Sollux," you choke out in between panting breaths. "S – stop – stop it! We don't belong – in this quadrant – this is – this is – oh – "

Ignoring your pleas, Sollux reaches down with one hand to fondle you, and suddenly your ability to entertain anything resembling a rational thought has been completely short-circuited. For a moment there's nothing; no sight, no sound, no thought; just sparks flying in your head, crackling through the inside of your think pan until they fizzle out against your skull and die.

"What?" You open your eyes and find yourself staring into Sollux's glowing red one. "What is…what are we…" Your head is completely blank. You are vaguely aware that you were trying to say something a second ago, though you'll be damned if you can remember what or why.

Sollux begins walking two prongs languidly down your stomach, and that sends a jolt of electric panic through you powerful enough to jump-start your sluggish mind. Thoughts come flooding back. "No no no no don't do that again!" Desperation makes it come out as an anguished shriek.

Sollux pauses, his hand hovering dangerously. You grit your teeth in fear as your blood pusher jumps into overdrive. A dreadful certainty blooms in your mind that this is it: if he touches you one more time, you're a goner whether you want to be or not. You want this as just as much as you don't want this, maybe more; you can't fight him, you can't fight yourself, you can't fight the situation. There is nothing left for you to do but give up.

A wracking sob tears its way free of your throat, and fat, red tears join the blood that is rolling down your cheeks to pool on the floor.


	14. Chapter 14

The hand doesn't fall. He stays frozen where he is, his horns locked with yours, his red eye dominating your entire field of vision. Your eyes dart back and forth as you try to figure out what the hell is going on. Is he toying with you? Drawing out the moment? Or is that a hint of indecision you detect behind that forbidding red orb?

"Sollux, please!" It comes out as a terrified whimper, and you don't even care. "Not like this," you plead. "Not like this!"

The seconds drag by with torturous sluggishness. Then, abruptly, he lifts his horns from yours and returns his hand to the safe territory of the floor next to you. You blink rapidly as you try to focus your eyes on him. Have you been given a reprieve? He's on all fours above you, staring down at you with an intense gaze. He still has you pinned with psionic ties; the hornlock was a mere formality, and you both know it. You are still very much at his mercy. You search his face for any clue as to what will come next, but you can't divine anything from his inscrutable expression. There is nothing there; no hate, no lust, no anger, nothing. His face is now just as much of a blank slate as those uniform, glowing eyes.

The tension is unbearable. "God damn it, Sollux!" you exclaim in an anguished howl. "What the fuck are you trying to do?" All of the little things that have been off about him today – the strange things he said, the unusual calm, the brazen forwardness, all of it – have crescendoed into a fever pitch. This isn't your Sollux; this isn't _any _Sollux you know. Suddenly, that nonsense he was spouting earlier about how everything has changed since his wriggling day sounds a lot less crazy. You wish you had listened. Why didn't you listen?

"This isn't you," you whisper hoarsely, staring imploringly up into his eyes. "What the hell is going on with you?"

Sollux narrows his eyes and his lip curls. "Oh," he says. "So now you want to know? Suddenly you're all auricular sponge clots?" He snorts and cocks his head at you. "Are you sure you don't want to just call it bullshit and tell me to evacuate it out my protein chute again?"

"No no no, I believe you, I totally believe you, I do, yes!" The words come pouring out of you in a confused jumble as you trip over them in your haste to get them out before he does anything even more terrifying. "What happened, tell me, on your wriggling day when you turned six?"

"Eheheh." He giggles, a high-pitched, frenzied sound that sets your nerves on edge. He rests his forearms on your chest and settles himself comfortably, bringing his face close to yours. "I saw the future, KK," he murmurs. "That's what happened. I saw all of the terrible things that will happen to us…" His eyes go unfocused as he stares into some unknown and unknowable inner landscape. "There are…there are so many of them," he says dreamily. "We are all going to die, you know. Me, you, TZ, AA, everyone…" His eyes once again focus on yours. "The sky is going to fall, KK. It will be the end of the world. Armageddon."

"Wh – what?" you gasp, staring up at him in bewildered shock. This latest twist, coming as it has right in the midst of caliginous hornlock, is too much; you simply cannot process it. Your brain feels like it's tearing itself in half; he has sucked you right into his madness. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the future." He smiles brightly, and there's a horrible, manic glint in his eyes as he continues that makes you shudder. "I'm a true prophet of doom now, KK. Just like the blind prophets of legend."

You gape at him. Out of the heaping pile of irrational assertions that he has just dumped onto your nutrition plateau, your mind seizes on the low-hanging fruit. "You can't be a blind prophet, Sollux," you say. "You aren't blind!"

"Not _yet_," he replies ominously.

You shiver as you stare up at him. He's so _serious._

"Sollux, no – " You shake your head emphatically, both in denial and in an attempt to clear it of his disturbed ranting. "Come on, bro, this is frothing looneyblock nonsense even by your standards!"

"It's the future, KK!" he snaps. "I've seen it all in my visions." Then he smiles and twirls one finger lightly through a lock of your hair, for all the world as if this is pillow talk. "I will be the first one to die. There's going to be…" He takes a breath and expels it in a soft sigh against your lips. "Oh, there will be a _lot _of blood, KK. Did you know that bleeding from your eyes is an actual thing that you can do?" He grins again, an expression so at odds with the things he's saying that it makes your stomach turn. "You can. And I actually will! I will do it _twice. _It's really, really, really…" He takes a shaky breath. "…really a _painful _way to die. I always hoped I'd get something quick and neat, you know? Like being sliced in half by an Imperial Drone – "

"Stop. Stop! Sollux, stop it!" In his distraction, he stopped pinning your arms, and now you rest your hands on his shoulders in what you hope is a placating gesture. "Just stop. Listen, I don't know what you think you saw, but it isn't real, okay? It's just a mutant brain thing! You're just – you're having one of your moods! You know how you get sometimes!"

He stills and his eyes narrow dangerously. "What are you saying?" he demands. "How, exactly, do I get sometimes?"

"Y – you know what I mean!" you say. But the blank expression on his face says he doesn't, and suddenly you find yourself contemplating the awful possibility that maybe he's genuinely unaware of it. You swallow hard, fighting down panic. "You know! You get a little bit…kind of…well… sort of…" _Crazy_. "Moody," you finish aloud.

Rage flashes across his features, and you cringe back in fear. "Moody?" he says incredulously. "You're talking about my fucking _moods?" _Then the anger vanishes as quickly as it appeared. "The fact that I'm going to die," he says evenly, "is an immutable fact that I am stating for the record. It doesn't mean that _moodiness_ is what is happening here."

"Okay, cool, whatever you say," you say, trying to keep your tone soothing. "You're not being moody, then. But that stuff you said, none of it's real! You – "

"Fuck you!" he shouts, jerking upright and pounding on your chest with both fists in frustration. "This shit's more real that Kraft grubsauce! Why don't you ever listen to me? You are the worst fucking friend to have, all you're good for is shouting at the top of your lungs and being a complete asshole that I hate in every way!"

"Okay okay! You win, okay?" There's no point in trying to reason with him right now, that's obvious; he's clearly lost it. He still has you trapped, and you are acutely aware that he could squash you like a bug if he so chooses. You are up excrement brook without a propulsion slat here, and a single false move could be the end of you. Your only hope of getting out of this in one piece is to appease him. "I believe you, Sollux," you say, doing your best to look earnest and guileless as he glares mistrustfully down at you. "Seriously. You're right and I believe you about all of it!" Then you subside into petrified silence and wait to see if he will take you at face value.


	15. Chapter 15

After a few long, agonizingly tense seconds, Sollux's fierce glare softens, and you expel a breath you didn't realize you were holding. He rests his hands on your shoulders and gives you a wounded look. "I don't know why you're being so stubborn about this," he says darkly. "They are all backing me up on this, every single last one of them. And they're never wrong."

You still as your insides knot with a fresh wave of fear. "The voices?" you hazard. "Of the dead, or whatever?"

"Of the imminently deceased!" he corrects you sharply. "The dead are AA's thing."

"Can you…" You swallow. You are not really sure you want to know the answer to this question. "Can you hear them right now?"

He smiles. "Yes, I can hear them. Eheheheh, I can _always _hear them. But right now, they're – " He stiffens and glances fearfully over his shoulder, then leans down to whisper in your ear. "They're _loud, _KK," he breathes. Then he lifts his head and smiles that awful, glassy-eyed smile again. "In fact, I can barely hear you over them right now."

You nervously lick lips gone dry. Once again, things have gone from bad to worse. It keeps happening. You don't want to think about where you will be ten minutes from now if it continues to keep happening.

You ask another question that you're pretty sure you don't want to know the answer to. "What are they saying?"

"What are they saying?" His eyes fly wide open as he repeats your question, and his voice leaps unexpectedly to a shout. "What are they _saying? _They're saying _that they're going to die!"_ He squeezes his eyes shut and claps his hands to the sides of his head, teeth bared. "What else would they say! That's what they always fucking say, every fucking day of my life!"

When his eyes snap open, they are glowing again. Your digestion sac sinks.

"But I'm used to that, KK." His voice is abruptly calm and quiet again. "I'm used to hearing trolls die and listening to them scream while it happens. That's pretty much what I _do. _Eheh, actually I thought I knew every way there was to die until I saw the very special death that the universe has set up for me. But now – but now – " His jaw clenches and he shudders.

"What is it?" you ask, even though you are terrified of the answer you might receive.

"Now it's _everyone!" _he shrieks, grabbing your shoulders with a hiss. "It's everyone, KK! All of Alternia! The whole galaxy! All trolls!" His wild-eyed stare is accompanied by twin sparks of dancing lightning. "The world is ending, KK, don't you understand? It will be the vast glub! It's coming! Everyone is going to die!" His body is wracked by a spasm, and suddenly he isn't even making a pretense of keeping you pinned anymore. His forehead crashes into your chest as he curls up, his claws scratching your skin as he clutches twin handfuls of your shirt. "Every single troll will die, every single one, I can hear – " He breaks off in a choked cry. His whole head is surrounded by the lightning now. "I can hear them, I can hear them all I can't stop hearing them – "

You go shooting out from underneath him as fast as you can scramble. He slides off of you easily, his claws taking several strips of your already mangled shirt with them. You roll into a defensive crouch and whirl to face him, but he isn't coming after you. He's lying there on the floor, curled up, clasping his head with both hands. "There are so many, _so many,_" he wails. "And they're so loud! KK, why do they have to be so loud, why – " He shivers and curls up more tightly. "Everyone, everyone! I wish they'd shut the fuck up, just for two seconds even – I almost stopped hearing them for a minute there, but then you _stopped,_ KK, why did you have to fucking _stop, _you ruined everything_ – _"

You can only stare as he raves. Sollux has always had his issues, but not like _this. _Nothing in the sweeps of dealing with his moods has prepared you for what you see in front of you now.

This is literal insanity.

His words become muffled as he buries his face in his hands. "Why does it have to be like this? KK why can't they leave me alone KK! I hate it, I hate it, I hate it, I – ah – " He breaks off in a shuddering gasp and writhes in pain, rolling back and forth on your hive floor.

You stay rooted to the spot as his fit continues. You have no idea how to deal with this; you are in way over your head here. You reach for him with one hand, but then freeze as it approaches the perimeter of his one-man lightning storm, which has grown to envelop his entire body. No way can you put your hand into that. It was an idiotic idea from the start. So instead, you stand there feeling foolish and dangling one hand uselessly in midair.

That's when you see it. A window to his face momentarily clears, and you gasp in dismay. He hasn't just hidden his face in his hands; he is actually clutching his head so tightly that his claws have cut fresh yellow tracks into his forehead and cheeks. Now his prongs have reached his eyes, but he hasn't relaxed his grip; honey-colored blood is beading up from his eyelids where the tips of those sharp claws are digging into them.

"Sollux, what the fuck are you doing?" You dive forward and grab his wrists, heedless of the crackling energy surrounding him. You take a nasty shock in the process and bark out a string of curses colorful enough to singe the air, but at least you manage to yank his hands away from his face before he can put his eyes out.

He cries out as the force of your gesture yanks him sideways; then he's clutching at you, grabbing your forearms and dragging himself towards you. He looks up at you, and his eyes are full of so much misery and pleading that your breath stops in your wind tunnel. "It hurts, KK," he gasps. "It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts – "

You pull at him, trying to at least get him sitting up so that he's not sprawled pathetically across the floor, but he's shaking so hard that it's next to impossible. He manages to get his knees underneath him for a moment, but then another shudder of pain takes him. He pitches forward against your chest, and you grab him tightly and hold him there.

"Just calm down!" you exclaim frantically. "Just relax and we can talk about this – "

"Let go of me!" Suddenly, the guy that was clinging to you desperately mere moments ago is fighting against you tooth and nail.

"Quit that! Sollux, stop it!" You try to tighten your grip, but he turns his head sideways and bites your arm.

You cry out in pain and surprise as you reel back; those double fangs went in _deep. _He spins away from you and manages to hobble forward a short distance on his knees. You reach out to put a hand on his shoulder. "Sol – "

You break off when an errant twin blast of red and blue energy escapes from his eyes. It hits the opposite wall of the block and chars one of your movie posters to a crisp. You gape.

Then Sollux clutches his head and screams. It's not like any other scream you've ever heard, but you don't know what else to call that terrible sound. He arches and his whole body goes rigid.

And then he explodes.


	16. Chapter 16

You are frozen in stunned awe as twin columns of red and blue energy burst from his eyes and crash through the far corner of your hive with a deafening screech as metal twists and glass shatters. The beams have sliced through your wall like a hot knife through grubloaf. They widen with distance; although they're narrow where they emerge from his eyes, they just punched a hole through your block wall that is as wide as you are tall. You are momentarily rooted to the spot, aghast at the thought of what would have happened to you had you managed to keep your grip on him.

Then Sollux twitches in pain. The movement makes his head jerk backwards, and, just like that, those paired lances of destruction sweep across your ceiling and back. You snap out of your shock with a curse as debris begins to fall around him. You grab him by the horns and scramble backwards towards safety, making very certain that you keep his deadly gaze pointed firmly away from you.

You stop your frantic scooting only when you slam into something hard. You shout an expletive and spare it a quick glance; it's your cocoon. You level a string of vitriolic curses at it for blocking your path.

Sollux's fit shows no sign of slowing down. His awful, keening scream hasn't ceased even once, and he is twitching in obvious agony. He isn't responding to your shouts; he probably can't even here you, wherever he is. This _has _to be taking a heavy toll on him – not to mention that it's putting you in mortal danger. Once again, you find yourself fighting panic; there's nowhere left to go, and this is starting to look like the end of the line for you.

As you press back desperately against your cocoon, an idea suddenly sparks within your frantically whirling mind. There is actually one thing you could try. It'll be risky and you have no idea if it will actually work, but you figure that anything's a step up from cowering in terror and praying that you can wait this out.

You will have exactly one chance go get this right. You take a deep breath.

Then you surge to your feet, dragging Sollux with you by the horns. You whirl, keeping him squarely in front of you; curl him over your cocoon; and shove him face-first into the sopor slime.

There is a muffled boom from within the cocoon, then blessed silence. A few bubbles rise to the surface of the slime and pop. Sollux goes limp.

Then he starts to struggle. You brace your forearms against the cocoon's entrance and hold him down. You wait until his fighting takes on a trace of desperation; only when he writhes against you and his claws gouge the corrugated exterior of your cocoon as they skitter across it do you let him up for air. Even then, you remain poised to shove him right back in if the need arises.

Sollux surfaces, coughing and gasping and spitting out sopor slime. Mercifully, the fireworks don't pick up where they left off; but he is still panicked, still trying to choke out more madness even though he has barely gotten his breath back.

"Don't!" you bark. You prevent him from straightening by grabbing a fistful of his hair and leaning on him with all of your body weight. You hold his head near the surface of the sopor slime. "Here! Drink this," you command, scooping a handful of slime up with your free hand and bringing it to his lips. You are not above taking a leaf out of Gamzee's book in an emergency.

To your immense relief, he obeys your command consumes it without protest. You feed him half a dozen more swallows before you decide it's enough. Sollux already seems marginally calmer; at least he is no longer trying to escape. You cautiously relax your grip on his hair. When he doesn't do anything alarming, you let go of him entirely and sag against your cocoon. For a moment, both of you stay there, clinging to the side of your cocoon and panting.

You glance at him sidelong as you recover. It looks like the sopor is already hitting him, if you're any judge. He's staring with unfocused eyes into the red and yellow whorls of blood marring the bright green slime's surface, transferred there from his face. Excess sopor is slowly dripping off the tip of his nose.

Once your blood pusher is no longer hammering like it's making a bid to burst from your thorax, you straighten and snag your slime towel from the foot of the cocoon. "Close your eyes," you order tersely. He turns and blinks at you owlishly, and you instinctively recoil from being in the path of his gaze. "Don't look at me!" You grab one of his horns and roughly twist his pan the other direction, and he lets out a half-hearted little whimper in response. "Hold still."

You try to use the towel to wipe the thick, green residue from his skin. But the moment you inadvertently put pressure on his cheek, he loses his balance. He reaches out blindly and manages to grab the rim of the cocoon, which sends his torso swinging around until his back impacts its side. You make a grab for him as he loses his grip entirely, but you aren't quick enough to stop him from sliding down the outside of the cocoon and sprawling across the floor in an ungainly heap.

He rolls over and manages to get himself propped up on his elbows as you kneel next to him. "Let's try this one more time." You grab a handful of his hair to immobilize him and quickly towel his face clean of sopor slime and blood, both his and yours.

When you finish, his eyes flutter open. You dive aside in alarm; you are far from convinced that it is safe to be in the crosshairs of his gaze.

"Wait, don't go!" He reaches after you in panicked desperation. "Don't leave me alone with them! KK, I can't – "

"I'm not going anywhere!" you snap back at him. You duck behind him and lean back against your cocoon, then grab his shoulders and haul him into a sitting position. He is docile now and doesn't fight you as you pull him back against you. You secure him with one arm around his waist and position his head carefully on your shoulder so that his eyes are directed away from you. "Close your eyes," you murmur, using your free hand to gently coax his eyelids down. You keep the hand there, holding him lightly in place. If he goes completely shithive maggots on you again, at least you're only going to lose a few prongs.

"KK!" Sollux clutches at the arm around his waist with both hands. "KK, don't you understand?" he wails. "Closing my eyes doesn't stop me from seeing _anything!" _Then he dissolves into tears.

"Sollux – oh God, Sollux, just hang on!" you tell him. "You'll be calm soon!" You hope.

His fingers wind tightly into yours, and you squeeze his hand fiercely in return. "There's so much death," he moans weakly in between shuddering sobs. "It's – everywhere – we're all doomed, and there's nothing we can do about it! Why does it have to be like this? KK, why?" He shivers miserably against you. "Why do I have to listen to it all the time? Why can't I stop – hearing it – " His voice is getting less intelligible as his sobs strengthen, but he manages one more coherent question before the tears take over. He says, "KK, why do I always have to live like this?"

Then no more words. Just tears. An ocean of yellow tears pours through your fingers and down his cheeks as he weeps; inconsolate, agonized, desperate tears. He is breaking right in front of your very eyes, and you are watching it happen.

And you are sickeningly unable to do anything about it. Because what can you possibly do? What can you, Karkat Vantas, do to stop your best friend from feeling as awful as he does right now? It doesn't matter what's real and what's not; it's all real to him. He's facing his own death and the end of everything he knows and cares about. What do you say to that? "Everything is going to be all right"? That's a laugh. "Don't worry, I'm here"? Yeah, right. As if your presence is worth a damn to him right now. What help are you against his imminent doom? Against the end of the world? Against the searing agony his own brain perpetrates on him every day?

None, that's what. You are absolutely, utterly, completely useless. You can say nothing, you can do nothing, you _are_ nothing. So you just sit where you are and choke silently on your own impotence while he weeps the soul-wrenching tears of the utterly hopeless into your hands.


	17. Chapter 17

Time passes. Sollux's wracking sobs gradually decrease in intensity and eventually subside entirely. His death grip on your hand loosens, and he goes limp against you. For long seconds he is still but for the steady rise and fall of his shoulders. You begin to wonder if he has fallen asleep.

Then you feel his lashes brush across your palm as he opens his eyes. "K," he says weakly. "KK." He gropes after your hand in order to pull it away from his eyes, and you let him, judging the threat to be over. He grabs your knee and starts squirming around to face you. You lift your arms to hover over his shoulders, poised to assist, but you aren't sure quite what he's trying to do. His movements are clumsy and uncoordinated, and you estimate he's half-conscious at best. The sopor slime is doing its job.

Then his hand slips off of your knee. His head thumps into your chest and slides sideways, and he gives up. He goes limp against you, head resting in the crook of your elbow, legs tangled with yours, one arm twisted up underneath him in a manner that looks anything but comfortable. You manage to get your hands under his arms and pull him up so that his head is resting against your chest and you can support his back with one knee. This looks a lot more natural, even though his legs still trail out awkwardly between yours.

"KK," He says, tugging urgently at the fabric of your shirt.

You wrap your arms around his shoulders, pull up your other knee and rest your head atop his, enclosing his upper half in what you hope will feel like a warm, dark, protective cocoon. "What is it?" you murmur.

"KK, when I die for the last time, it will be a lot like this." His words come out slowly and a little bit slurred, and the lisp is more pronounced than usual. "More blood, though…mine, I mean, not yours…" He trails off for a few seconds. "But you'll be here with me, just like this. You'll hold me…" He shifts again and tilts his head upwards, and you straighten just enough to give him space to lift his head and meet your gaze. Soft red and blue haze trails out of the corners of his eyes right now, an effect you have never seen before.

"I can't see anything past that." He chuckles weakly. "Eheheh, I guess because I'm dead then? It makes sense…." He sighs softly. "Do you think…when that day comes, do you think anyone will cry?"

"Of course they will," you snarl. "What kind of a question even is that?"

He keeps going without a break, seemingly oblivious to your comment. "Or do you think everyone will be like, "Oh look, that stupid mutant with the two idiotic colors is finally dead, it's about time someone put him out of his fucking misery…isn't it amazing how much everybody fucking hated him…isn't it so great that we don't have to pretend – ""

"Shut the hell up!" you shout, punching him in the shoulder. "Nobody thinks that!"

He blinks at you owlishly as he tries to focus on you. "KK." He sounds vaguely startled, as though he had entirely forgotten about your presence. He frowns when he sees the tears in your eyes. "No…no…" He frees one hand to weave uncertainly to your cheek and wipe them away. "It's not sad, KK," he says. "Don't be sad."

"Yes it is sad!" you exclaim. "This is the saddest fucking thing I've ever heard in my life!"

"No," he shakes his head. "You don't understand. It's a good thing. That day, when I finally die…it will be the happiest day of my life."

You stare at him in horrified incomprehension. "How can you say that?" you hiss, a fresh wave of tears springing to your eyes.

"Because." He smiles at you, and his expression is momentarily clear of all the storminess and torment that have plagued him all evening. For a moment, he is completely at peace. "That day, I will finally be free," he breathes.

Then his eyes flutter shut and he goes limp in your arms.

"No, don't say that," you plead frantically. "Don't you dare talk like that! Take it back!" You shake him once, hard. "You fucking take it back, do you hear me?"

No response. He's out.

"God damn it, Captor!" you sob. "You piece of shit!" Now it's your turn to weep. You tighten your arms around him and bring your face close to his, your teeth bared in a silent scream of frustration and heartbreak. You wail mutely that you will take half the pain for him so that he doesn't have to bear it alone, that you would do _anything _to keep him from having to feel this way anymore. You soundlessly shriek out your fury and disgust and self-loathing over your own pathetic ineptitude, over being unable to do anything at all to help. Salty red droplets flow freely down your cheeks to splatter into Sollux's hair as you cry yourself out.


	18. Chapter 18

Your fit is much less protracted and spectacular than his was; you don't have that luxury. You can't afford for both of you to be useless, blubbering messes. Somebody's got to stay in control here, and it sure as hell isn't about to be him.

You fight to pull yourself together, urging your blood pusher to slow down and trying to even out your shuddering breaths. At first it's nearly impossible; every time you start to make progress, one of the myriad of upsetting events that transpired tonight flashes through your mind and sets you off again. You do your best to shove any and all thoughts out of your head, leaving your sponge blank and placid. It's a tricky mental balancing act, but it helps; your tears trickle to a halt and you are finally able to catch your breath.

You breathe a small sigh of relief. You are out of the woods. You honestly believe that, and you keep on believing that right up to the moment when you make the mistake of lifting your head.

You immediately gasp and stiffen, staring wild-eyed around the block at the devastation that has been wrought upon your hive. Blood, sopor slime, scorch marks, debris…it's too much. You can't deal with this right now, you can't even _think _about this right now. The tears are threatening again and your hands are starting to shake; this only promises to get worse.

You need to talk to someone. Anyone. It doesn't matter who; you just need someone to remind you that there's still a sane world lying somewhere outside of these four walls.

You hurriedly prop Sollux against the side of your cocoon. Then you dash across the room and throw yourself into your computer station chair.

carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling gallowsCalibrator [GC]

CG: HEY.  
CG: SOLLUX IS FREAKING OUT.  
GC: R344444LLY?  
GC: SO WH4T 3LS3 1S N3W? ;]  
CG: NO.  
CG: NO, I DON'T MEAN HIS USUAL ANTICS.  
CG: I'M TALKING A SERIOUS SHITHIVE MAGGOTS MELTDOWN OVER HERE.  
CG: IT'S A FREAKOUT SO MAJOR, IT MAKES ALL HIS PREVIOUS DRAMA LOOK LIKE A WALK IN THE COMMUNAL RECREATION LAWNRING.  
GC: WH4TS GO1NG ON?  
CG: I'LL TELL YOU WHAT'S GOING ON.  
CG: WHAT'S GOING ON IS THIS.  
CG: OKAY SO  
CG: WELL  
CG: MAN.  
CG: I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE TO START.  
GC: :|  
GC: TH4T W4SNT 3X4CTLY 4N 4NSW3R  
CG: OKAY, I KNOW THAT, IT'S JUST THAT TODAY HAS BEEN A REALLY LONG AND FUCKED UP DAY FULL OF UNSPEAKABLE BULLSHIT.  
CG: THAT'S WHAT TODAY HAS BEEN.  
GC: W3LL, UNSP34K4BL3 OR NOT, 1TS H4RD FOR M3 TO KNOW WH4TS GO1NG ON 1F YOU R3FUS3 TO SP34K 4BOUT 1T!  
CG: I'M NOT REFUSING, WHO SAID ANYTHING ABOUT REFUSING.  
CG: I'M JUST TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHAT TO SAY, IS THAT SO HARD TO FUCKING ACCEPT.  
GC: *S1111111GH*  
GC: F1111111N3  
GC: 1 C4NT 3V3N S33 SOLLUX ONL1N3 R1GHT NOW, D1D H3 BLOCK M3 FOR SOM3 R34SON? :[  
CG: WHAT.  
CG: NO, HE'S NOT ONLINE.  
CG: HE'S HERE.  
CG: AND HE'S FREAKING OUT, DID I MENTION THE PART ABOUT FREAKING OUT.  
GC: H3 1S TH3R3 1N YOUR H1V3?  
GC: W3LL 1 GU3SS TH4T 3XPL41NS WHY H3 H4SN'T 4NSW3R3D 4NY OF MY M3SS4G3S FOR TH3 P4ST THR33 D4YS :\  
GC: SO DO3S TH4T M34N YOU GUYS 4R3 H4V1NG ON3 OF YOUR ROM4NT1C MOV13 P4RT13S TO C3L3BR4T3 H1S WR1GGL1NG D4Y?  
GC: ;]  
CG: WHAT, NO.  
CG: HE HASN'T BEEN HERE FOR THREE DAYS, HE WAS IGNORING MY MESSAGES TOO.  
CG: LIKE A DOUCHE.  
CG: HE JUST SHOWED UP HERE UNANNOUNCED THIS AFTERNOON.  
CG: AND NO, WATCHING ROMCOMS WASN'T EXACTLY ON THE AGENDA TODAY.  
GC: K4RK4T, HOW COM3 YOU N3V3R 1NV1T3 M3 TO ON3 OF YOUR ROM4NT1C MOV13 P4RT13S, HMMMMMMMMMM? ;]  
GC: OR WOULD 1T SPO1L TH3 MOOD FOR YOU 4ND SOLLUX 1F SOM3ON3 3LS3 W4S TH3R3 ;]  
GC: 1 WOULDNT W4NT TO 1NTRUD3 ON YOUR SP3C14L PR1V4T3 T1M3 TOG3TH3R ;]  
GC: ;] ;] ;]  
CG: WHOA WAIT, WHAT.  
CG: WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT.  
CG: OKAY, FIRST OF ALL, I DON'T WANT YOU LICKING MY MOVIE SCREEN.  
CG: IT'S FUCKING DISGUSTING.  
CG: AND SECOND, DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS CONVERSATION ISN'T ABOUT?  
CG: THAT THING YOU JUST INSINUATED.  
CG: I CAN HANG OUT WITH MY GOOD BRO SOLLUX ALONE IF I WANT, THERE'S NOTHING WEIRD ABOUT THAT.  
CG: WHAT WE DO TOGETHER IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.  
GC: :O  
CG: I MEAN IT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS BECAUSE IT'S UNREMARKABLE.  
CG: IT'S JUST NORMAL THINGS THAT TWO TROLL BROS DO, NOT EVEN WORTH TALKING ABOUT.  
GC: H3H3H3H3!  
GC: TH4T W4S UNN3C3SS4R1LY D3F3NS1V3, 4ND SOM3WH4T 1NTR1GU1NG!  
GC: 3X4CTLY WH4T UNR3M4RK4BL3 TH1NGS H4V3 YOU TWO B33N DO1NG TOD4Y?  
CG: GOD DAMN IT.  
CG: LOOK, I'M UP TO MY BULGE IN A REALLY FUCKING SERIOUS SITUATION OVER HERE, OKAY?  
CG: I'M COMPLETELY FREAKED OUT AND I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT.  
CG: SO COULD YOU PLEASE JUST FOCUS ON THINGS THAT AREN'T TEXTBOOK EXAMPLES OF MEANINGLESS BULLSHIT FOR FIVE SECONDS HERE.  
CG: BECAUSE EVEN THOUGH IT WOULD PROBABLY BE MORE ENJOYABLE TO BLUDGEON MY LOBE STEM WITH A BLUNT OBJECT, I COULD ACTUALLY USE YOUR HELP RIGHT NOW.  
GC: :]  
GC: 1 KNOW, YOU 4R3 1N D3SP3R4T3 N33D OF MY GU1D4NC3  
GC: 1 ST1LL DONT TH1NK YOUR3 T3LL1NG M3 TH3 WHOL3 STORY, BUT 1 W1LL M4GN4N1MOUSLY OV3RLOOK TH4T 4ND MOV3 ON 1N TH3 1NT3R3ST OF H3LP1NG 4 FR13ND  
CG: THANK YOU.  
GC: 1 M34NT H1M, NOT YOU ;]  
CG: OH.  
CG: GEE THANKS.  
GC: CH1LL OUT, 1T W4S 4 JOK3 STUP1D :\  
GC: T3LL M3 WH4T 1S GO1NG ON OV3R TH3R3  
GC: OTH3R TH4N TH3 COMPROM1S1NG TH1NGS YOU DONT W4NT M3 TO KNOW 4BOUT, 1 W1LL US3 MY 1M4G1N4T1ON TO F1LL 1N THOS3 D3T41LS ;]  
CG: FUCK YOU.  
CG: YOU KNOW WHAT, MAYBE I DON'T FEEL LIKE TALKING ABOUT IT ANYMORE, HAVE YOU THOUGHT OF THAT.  
GC: BL44444R K4RK4T QU1T B31NG SUCH 4 W1GGL3R 4ND T3LL M3  
CG: OKAY FINE.  
CG: FOR THE RECORD, THAT'S WHAT I'VE BEEN TRYING TO DO SINCE THIS CONVERSATION STARTED, BUT WHATEVER.  
GC: 1F YOU S4Y SO :\  
CG: SHUT UP.  
CG: BASICALLY WHAT HAPPENED IS  
CG: WELL  
CG: SHENANIGANS.  
CG: SHENANIGANS HAPPENED.  
GC: :[  
CG: AND THEN SOLLUX TOTALLY LOST HIS SHIT.  
CG: IT WAS LIKE FUCKING 12TH PERIGEE'S EVE UP IN HERE, AND HE WAS THE LIGHT SHOW.  
CG: THERE'S A CRACK IN THE SIDE OF MY HIVE BIGGER THAN I AM.  
CG: HE ALMOST TOOK ME OUT TOO, GOD, I MEAN IF I HAD JUST BEEN A LITTLE BIT TO MY LEFT.  
CG: SO NOW I'M JUST SITTING HERE WATCHING THE GREEN MOON THROUGH THE HUGE FUCKING BLAST HOLE AND TRYING NOT TO PANIC.  
GC: :O  
GC: K4RK4T 4R3 YOU OK4Y?  
CG: I DON'T KNOW, I THINK MY NOSE MIGHT BE BROKEN.  
GC: 4R3 YOU S3R1OUS?  
GC: HOW D1D TH4T H4PP3N?  
CG: THAT'S NOT IMPORTANT.  
CG: IT'LL BE HEALED IN A DAY OR TWO ANYWAY, I'M ACTUALLY MORE WORRIED ABOUT HIM ON THAT FRONT.  
GC: 1S H3 HURT TOO?  
CG: I DON'T KNOW, IS IT POSSIBLE FOR HIM TO BURN OUT.  
GC: :?  
CG: LIKE FROM USING HIS MIND POWERS TOO MUCH OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT.  
GC: 1M NOT SUR3  
GC: BUT 1 TH1NK TH4T 1F H3 H4D COMPL3T3LY LOST CONTROL, TH3N YOU WOULDNT B3 T4LK1NG TO M3 R1GHT NOW :\  
CG: MAN, YOU'RE ONLY SAYING THAT BECAUSE YOU CAN'T SEE WHAT MY HIVE LOOKS LIKE.  
CG: IT COULDN'T POSSIBLY HAVE BEEN MUCH WORSE THAN IT ALREADY FUCKING WAS.  
GC: 1M NOT SO SUR3 4BOUT TH4T  
GC: WH4T 1S H3 DO1NG NOW, D1D YOU M4N4G3 TO C4LM H1M DOWN?  
CG: WELL RIGHT NOW HE'S ASLEEP.  
CG: SORT OF.  
CG: OKAY, MAYBE MORE LIKE PASSED OUT.  
GC: :?  
GC: I KIND OF FORCE FED HIM SOME SOPOR SLIME.  
GC: PFF444H4H4H4H4 YOU D1D WH4T? XD  
GC: 1S G4MZ33 RUBB1NG OFF ON YOU NOW?  
GC: 4R3 YOU T4K1NG R3L4X4T1ON L3SSONS FROM H1M OR SOM3TH1NG  
GC: C4N W3 3XP3CT TO S33 4 C4LM, NON-SHOUTY K4RK4T ON3 OF TH3S3 D4YS? HMM? ;]  
CG: DAMN IT NO.  
CG: FUCK THAT.  
CG: IT'S NOT LIKE I BAKED IT IN A STUPID PIE TIN THE WAY THAT IDIOT DOES.  
CG: I JUST NEEDED TO CALM MY GOOD FRIEND DOWN AND I DIDN'T KNOW HOW ELSE TO DO IT.  
GC: YOU M34N YOU G4V3 1T TO H1M R4W?  
CG: YEAH.  
CG: WHY, IS THAT IMPORTANT.  
CG: DOES IT MAKE A DIFFERENCE WHETHER IT'S COOKED OR NOT.  
GC: 1 TH1NK TH4T 1S 4 CR1T1C4L QU3ST1ON TO 4SK!  
GC: PR3F3R4BLY B3FOR3 YOU DOS3 4 FR13ND W1TH 1T R4TH3R TH4N 4FT3RW4RDS :\  
CG: OH WELL EXCUSE ME FOR NOT STOPPING TO PONDER THE FINER POINTS OF SOPOR SLIME CONSUMPTION WHILE MY BEST FRIEND SLICED HOLES THROUGH MY HIVE WALLS WITH HIS FREAKY MUTANT DEATH GAZE.  
CG: IT WAS KIND OF AN EMERGENCY, I DIDN'T HAVE A WHOLE LOT OF FUCKING OPTIONS.  
CG: SO WHAT'S THE ANSWER, DOES IT MATTER.  
GC: 1 DONT KNOW! 4SK G4MZ33  
GC: 1F 4NYBODY KNOWS THOS3 F1N3R PO1NTS OF SOPOR SL1M3 CONSUMPT1ON TH4T YOU JUST M3NT1ON3D, 1T WOULD B3 H1M!  
CG: MAN, NO WAY.  
CG: TALKING TO THAT DUMB FUCK IS THE LAST THING I NEED ON MY NUTRITION PLATEAU RIGHT NOW.  
CG: I CAN'T HANDLE THAT ON TOP OF EVERYTHING ELSE.  
GC: :\  
CG: HEY CAN I ASK YOU SOMETHING.  
GC: SUR3  
CG: YOU'RE SIX, RIGHT?  
GC: Y3S, 1 TURN3D S1X L4ST P3R1G33, YOU 4LR34DY KNOW TH4T  
CG: DID ANYTHING HAPPEN ON YOUR WRIGGLING DAY?  
GC: :?  
GC: TH1NGS H4PP3N 3V3RY D4Y, COULD YOU B3 4 L1TTL3 MOR3 SP3C1F1C?  
CG: I MEAN ANYTHING SIGNIFICANT. SOMETHING THAT REALLY STOOD OUT.  
GC: W3LL  
GC: 1 H4D 4 LOT OF STR4NG3 DR34MS, 4ND 1 C4NT SH4K3 TH3 F33L1NG TH4T TH3Y W1LL TURN OUT TO B3 V3RY 1MPORT4NT SOM3 D4Y  
GC: BUT R1GHT NOW TH3Y 4R3 JUST K1ND OF MYST3R1OUS  
GC: 4LSO, 4 C3RT41N SOM3ON3 TR13D TO GO4D M3 1NTO BR34K1NG 4 C3RT41N TRUC3, BUT TH4TS NOTH1NG N3W! :[  
GC: SO, NO ALTERNIA-SHAKING REVELATIONS OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT?  
GC: NO, NOT R34LLY :\  
GC: WHY?  
CG: OH, IT'S JUST SOMETHING SOLLUX SAID DURING HIS LOONEYBLOCK RAVING.  
CG: ABOUT WHAT PROMPTED THIS WHOLE MESS.  
CG: HE WAS GOING ON AND ON ABOUT BEING A BLIND PROPHET AND HOW THE WORLD IS GOING TO END AND A BUNCH OF OTHER MORBID, GLOOMY SHIT.  
GC: BUT SOLLUX 1SNT BL1ND :?  
CG: I KNOW RIGHT, IT MADE NO FUCKING SENSE.  
GC: ST1LL THOUGH, YOU S41D H3 M3NT1ON3D TH3 3ND OF TH3 WORLD?  
CG: YEAH, MORE THAN MENTIONED.  
CG: MORE LIKE, HE WENT ON ABOUT IT AT LENGTH.  
CG: IT'S RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER, ACCORDING TO HIM.  
GC: HMMMMMM  
GC: TH4T 1S V3RY 1NT3R3ST1NG  
CG: INTERESTING.  
CG: HOW IS THAT INTERESTING.  
CG: THAT IS BULLSHIT MANIAC TALK FROM A MUTANT WHOSE FUCKED UP BRAIN FINALLY GOT THE BETTER OF HIM.  
CG: SURELY YOU CAN'T BE TAKING ANY PART OF THAT SERIOUSLY.  
GC: I MEAN I KNOW YOU'RE A PSYCHO BLIND GIRL WHO LIVES IN A TREE AND ALL, BUT EVEN YOU AREN'T MAGGOTS ENOUGH FOR THAT.  
GC: W3LL, 1M NOT SUR3 WH4T 1 B3L13V3 Y3T!  
CG: OH MY GOD IS THIS REALLY HAPPENING, ALL OF MY FRIENDS ARE GOING CRAZY AT THE SAME TIME.  
CG: WHAT COULD POSSIBLY MAKE YOU EVEN ENTERTAIN THE THOUGHT OF CONSIDERING THE OPTION OF TAKING HIM SERIOUSLY.  
GC: 1T 1S JUST SOM3 OF TH3 TH1NGS MY LUSUS H4S B33N DR34M1NG 4BOUT L4T3LY  
CG: YOU MEAN  
CG: THE LUSUS YOU DON'T HAVE?  
GC: Y3S, 3X4CTLY :]  
CG: GOOD, PERFECT, THAT MADE TOTAL SENSE AND EXPLAINED EVERYTHING, THANK YOU SO MUCH.  
GC: H3H3H3 YOUR3 W3LCOM3!  
CG: UGH, I DON'T EVEN WANT TO KNOW, I'VE HAD ALL THE SENSELESS IDIOCY I CAN HANDLE FOR ONE DAY.  
CG: THIS IS ARADIA'S DOING, I JUST KNOW IT IS.  
GC: WHY WOULD YOU BL4M3 H3R?  
CG: BECAUSE YOU KNOW HOW SHE IS.  
CG: ALWAYS BEING SPOOKY AND TALKING ABOUT DEPRESSING THINGS AND HER STUPID VOICES.  
CG: AND SOLLUX LISTENS TO HER, BECAUSE HE'S A FUCKING IDIOT WHO LOVES TO WALLOW IN GLOOM AND DOOM AND SELF-PITY.  
CG: HE PRACTICALLY GETS OFF ON IT.  
CG: YOU'VE EXPERIENCED HIS MELODRAMATIC BULLSHIT, YOU KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT.  
GC: Y3S, H3 DO3S T3ND TO BLOW TH1NGS OUT OF PROPORT1ON SOM3T1M3S  
CG: WELL ISN'T THAT JUST THE FUCKING UNDERSTATEMENT OF A LIFETIME.  
CG: HE SEIZES ON EVERY LITTLE NEGATIVE THING LIKE IT'S THE WORLD'S LAST FLOTATION OVERGARMENT AND HE'S STRANDED IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING OCEAN.  
CG: AND THEN HE JUST REFUSES TO LET GO.  
CG: AND THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT HE WAS DOING EARLIER TODAY, THROWING ALL THESE PARANOID, FATALISTIC THEATRICS AT ME WHEN ALL I WANTED TO DO WAS TO GET HIM OFF.  
GC: 8O  
GC: PFFFFFF44444H4H4H4H4H4H4444H4H4H4H4H3H3H3H3!  
CG: WAIT  
CG: WHAT DID I JUST  
CG: FUCK  
CG: GET HIM OFF OF THE SUBJECT.  
GC: H4H4H4H4H4H4H4H4H4! XD  
CG: ALL I WANTED TO DO WAS TO GET HIM OFF OF THE SUBJECT.  
CG: THAT'S WHAT I WAS TRYING TO SAY.  
GC: H3H3H3H3H3H3H3H3H3! XD  
CG: GOD DAMN IT WOULD YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP ALREADY!  
GC: K4RK4444T XD  
GC: YOU C4N TH1NK 4BOUT G3TT1NG SOLLUX 1NTO 1N4PPROPR14T3 POS1T1ONS 4LL YOU L1K3, BUT PL34S3 4T L34ST TRY TO K33P TH4T SC4ND4LOUS 1M4G3RY 1N YOUR TH1NK P4N WH3R3 1T B3LONGS!  
CG: GOD DAMN IT.  
CG: LOOK, THAT WASN'T WHAT THAT WAS.  
CG: YOU KNOW WHAT, CAN WE PLEASE JUST STAY ON TRACK HERE.  
GC: 1 4M TRY1NG, YOU 4R3 TH3 ON3 WHO 1S D3R41L1NG TH1NGS W1TH YOUR F4NT4S13S! ;]  
CG: SHUT THE FUCK UP.  
CG: THE POINT IS  
CG: UGH  
CG: WHAT EVEN IS THE POINT I'M TRYING TO MAKE.  
CG: WHAT WERE WE TALKING ABOUT, I DON'T EVEN KNOW ANYMORE.  
GC: 4R4D14!  
CG: OH RIGHT.  
CG: YEAH.  
CG: OKAY, THE POINT IS, I'M SURE ARADIA PROMPTED THIS SOMEHOW BY CONVINCING HIM THAT THESE RIDICULOUS PROPHECIES ARE TRUE.  
CG: HE SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED TO TALK TO HER FOR THE SAKE OF HIS OWN SANITY.  
GC: WH4T DO3S SH3 H4V3 TO S4Y ON TH3 M4TT3R?  
CG: HOW THE FUCK SHOULD I KNOW.  
CG: I DON'T WANT TO TALK TO HER, IT'S TOO DEPRESSING.  
GC: :|  
GC: K4RK4T, WHY 4R3 YOU T4LK1NG TO M3 R1GHT NOW?  
CG: WHAT.  
CG: I DON'T KNOW, BECAUSE I'M A GLUTTON FOR PUNISHMENT APPARENTLY.  
CG: WHAT KIND OF A QUESTION IS THAT.  
GC: :\  
GC: TH3R3 1S SOM3TH1NG 1 W4NT TO T3LL YOU, BUT 1 TH1NK 1T W1LL B3 MOR3 PRODUCT1V3 TO DO 1T 4 L1TTL3 L4T3R  
GC: F1RST YOU H4V3 TO M4K3 SUR3 TH4T SOLLUX 1S OK4Y 4ND YOU D1DNT 1N4DV3RT3NTLY PO1SON H1M OR SOM3TH1NG W1TH YOUR STUP1D R4W SOPOR SL1M3 STUNT  
GC: YOU C4N G3T B4CK TO M3 WH3N YOU H4V3 TH1NGS 4 L1TTL3 MOR3 UND3R CONTROL  
CG: OH GREAT, SO YOU'RE JUST GOING TO LEAVE ME HANGING.  
CG: THANKS FOR ALL THE WORTHWHILE ADVICE.  
CG: IT'S BEEN AWESOME, LET'S DO THIS AGAIN SOME TIME.  
CG: I DEFINITELY KNOW EXACTLY HOW TO HANDLE THIS SITUATION NOW.  
GC: H3H3H3  
GC: M4K3 SUR3 YOU T4LK TO 4R4D14 4ND G4MZ33 B3FOR3 YOU BOTH3R M3 4G41N  
GC: :]  
CG: ):B  
GC: 3  
CG: 3  
GC: H3H3H3 BY3333! ;]

gallowsCalibrator [GC] ceased trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG]

_(a/n: sorry, but this website doesn't display the less than/greater than symbols. Those last two emotes are meant to be a heart from Terezi and a spade from Karkat. Also, pretend that Terezi's horns/eyebrows are in her emotes where they belong! Thanks everyone!)_


	19. Chapter 19

You push back from your computer station angrily and pound the desk with your fist. Mind games from a Scourge Sister; why are you even surprised? There was no way you were going to get a straight answer out of her, that's obvious in retrospect. You don't know why you even bothered trolling her in the first place. You were just really freaked out, and the next thing you knew, you were embroiled in one of those inane verbal dances that passes for a conversation with Terezi. Worse, you can't shake the feeling that she saw right through you. Why was it her name you clicked on? Apparently your instincts decided now would be a good time to deliver a nice, swift kick to the bone bulge.

But despite the frustrating nature of that interaction, you have calmed down considerably. You are no longer on the verge of panic, and your whirling thoughts have returned to something resembling normal. You feel like you are ready to do something productive instead of crying and flipping your shit and babbling to Terezi like a fucking idiot.

You stand and immediately wince as the movement causes your nose to throb painfully. That needs to be your first priority; otherwise it could heal crooked.

You trek up the two flights of stairs to your ablution block and force your arm into the small space between the counter and the wall to rummage around awkwardly for your hive's sole mirror. This is where it usually lives; you hate your reflection. Your questing prongs finally reach the edge of the mirror, and you roll it out into the open and hoist it into the air.

You almost drop it in astonishment when you catch the first glimpse of yourself in it. Your face is covered in dried red tears. You've still got traces of yellow blood and green sopor slime on you; you were nowhere near as thorough in cleaning yourself up as you were with Sollux. Your hair is all over the place. Your shirt is torn to shreds. And, worst of all, your mutant crimson blood is just splashed everywhere; you've never seen anything like it. It's on your shirt, your skin, your face, your hair; all in all, it is a completely revolting and shameful display.

God, are you ever glad that Terezi couldn't see you when you talked. You suppose you should be consoling yourself over all the stupid shit that you let slip to her with the knowledge that no matter what she thinks happened here tonight, it is probably nowhere near as incriminating as the truth.

You wrestle the mirror onto its hook on the wall and inspect your nose critically. Yep – that's broken all right.

You clasp the crooked appendage between the heels of your hands, hissing in pain as you carefully adjust your grip. You swallow hard and close your eyes for a moment as you steel yourself for what has to happen next. Then you take a deep breath, set your shoulders determinedly and _snap _your nose back into place with one firm motion.

The pain is unbearable. You scream and put your fist through the wall a half a dozen times as a fresh wave of blood bursts forth and cascades down your chin. It's worse this time around than it was when he broke it in the first place, and it feels like an eternity before the agony begins to recede. You are left panting and shaky, clinging to the countertop so tightly that your claws have gouged fresh holes into its surface.

That was the end of the mirror. You give yourself a jaundiced gaze in one of the few reflective pieces remaining in the frame to confirm that your nose is, indeed, set correctly. Then you spend a few seconds plucking shards of glass out of your mangled knuckles.

Now that your nose has been dealt with, you assess your other injuries. Most of them were relatively minor cuts and bruises that have already healed into near-invisibility, but the notable exception is that pair of slashes on your wrist where Sollux's horns sliced through your flesh like a culling fork. They haven't closed over yet and are still dripping crimson blood in a steady stream. You dig some gauze out of the back of your ablution cabinet and bandage your forearm, a task that turns out to be surprisingly tricky to perform; you end up having to use your teeth to hold the end of the gauze in place while you wrap it around the limb. It comes out looking like a wiggler's bad craft project, but it gets the job done.

You then hurry back downstairs to check on Sollux. You find him sleeping fitfully in the middle of your respiteblock floor where you left him, and you kneel next to him carefully to avoid waking him.

His most serious injury is that bite you took out of his shoulder. It's a pretty nasty wound, and you feel terrible about that now; it's hard for you not to avert your gaze, knowing that you're the one that put it there.

In order to bandage it, you're going to have to get him out of his shirt.

You bite your lip and sternly remind yourself that this is about dressing a wound, _not _about undressing him. You don't so much take his shirt off as pull a few remaining tattered pieces of fabric away from his arm and chest. You have to turn him sideways and lift him partially onto your lap to get the bandage underneath his shoulder. To your immense relief, he barely even stirs as you use the remainder of the gauze to wrap his wound. When you are finished, you put his shirt back on as best you can and lay him back down on the floor.

That's what you should do, anyway. What you actually do is continue to hold him where he is, half-shirtless and partially on your lap, and lean in to bring your face close to his. You pick up his scent, and your eyes flutter shut of their own accord. Is that a trace of what you smelled earlier when he was in full submission for you? Or is that wishful thinking?

You had the chance to take him. To make him yours. You could have mixed colors with him any way you wanted, _every _way you wanted, whatever whim crossed your mind. That was your prerogative as the winner of the mating fight, in addition to the genetic advantage that it brings.

Yet somehow, you didn't.

You open your eyes, and your breath hitches at the sight of him. He is…he is so much more beautiful than you ever realized. From his long lashes to his delicate features to his slender frame, he is _perfect _to be your matesprit. Perfect to be pinned beneath you, oozing submission. The way he is now, eyes closed, limp, helpless and completely at your mercy, reminds you powerfully of that moment. You bring one hand up to hover over his lips, not quite touching the thin, barely-visible yellow line that marks the spot where you first broke his skin at the beginning of all of this.

You want to do it again. You want to sink your teeth into him and see the yellow blood well up and out, to follow its path with your tongue. It fills you with an intense, aching desire. You want to touch him so badly that you can barely breathe, so badly that it _hurts._

And you hate yourself for it. Because this is your best friend, passed out, potentially poisoned, and definitelyin the midst of a complete mental breakdown, and all you can think about is sex. You have got to be the worst grubfucker on the planet. What kind of person even has thoughts like these? This is far worse than what Sollux did when he jumped you inappropriately into the caliginous quadrant. At this point, there's no way you can believe you are anything short of a complete shithead.

You grit your teeth so hard they ache and fight the magnetic pull he has on you. Inch by inch you lay him down, cover his bare shoulder, sit up, pull your hands away. You pretend like all you were doing was checking his vitals, even though you know better. Yes, he's still breathing, his blood pusher's still going strong. He doesn't look like he's succumbing to poisoning, sopor-related or otherwise.

You suppose it's safe to leave the room for a few minutes. Also, it is probably necessary before you do something completely despicable.

You trudge back up to your ablution block and glare when you see the mess of broken glass and blood covering the counter and floor. You kick some of the shards aside to create a clear patch and begin peeling off your own ruined clothing. You pull away your shirt to reveal more red blood on your back and chest; you are covered in a fine network of little red cuts and claw marks. The shirt itself you discard down the waste chute; it's a lost cause. You shed your shoes, your socks, your pants and finally your underwear. There's more red there, the most shameful stuff of all. You throw those away, too.

Then you step into the trap and take a quick shower. At least, that is your intention. But in reality it degenerates into a marathon wank-fest. You hate yourself a little bit more with every passing second, but you can't stop. You clearly committed some sort of gross violation of natural law when you broke things off right at the brink earlier; your body has yet to settle down in certain notable and extremely mortifying ways that you have been trying very hard not to acknowledge up until now. Certain expectations were set, and you are powerless to keep from following through.

So that is exactly what you do; you dump more loads of red down the trap drain while you picture all of the things you _would_ have done to Sollux if you weren't a spineless, soggy nook who lost his nerve at the last second.

Some time and a lot of shame later, you get out and dry yourself off. You are so exhausted you can barely keep your eyes open; it takes all of your energy to pull on a fresh set of clothes. You head back downstairs, anxious that Sollux might have awoken while you were away, but he's still lying in the exact same position.

You eye your cocoon longingly, but ultimately decide to forego it. You just know that you'll be insensate the moment your head hits the sopor slime, and that doesn't seem like a bright idea when Sollux is in such a potentially fragile state. So instead, you lie down perpendicular to him and rest your head on his stomach. This way, if he moves or stops breathing or does anything else alarming, you'll know right away.

Then you close your eyes and do your best to get some sleep.


	20. Chapter 20

You abandon the endeavor of sleeping after an hour or two of flitting in and out of uneasy dreams filled with screaming trolls, blood and death. You sit up and groan as you bring a hand to your aching think pan. You feel almost more exhausted than when you first lay down.

You roll to your hands and knees and look Sollux over. He looks a little better than he did last night; some of the cuts and bruises have vanished. He's healing. You decide to let him keep on sleeping for awhile. He could use the rest, and you, meanwhile, have a skeletal fragment to pick with someone.

You cross your block and take a seat at your computer station.

carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling apocalypseArisen [AA]  
CG: WHAT THE HELL YOU HAVE YOU BEEN DOING.  
CG: TELL ME NOW, I DON'T HAVE THE PATIENCE FOR ANY MORE BULLSHIT.  
AA: 0_0  
AA: what are y0u talking ab0ut  
CG: DON'T ACT LIKE YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT.  
CG: YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT AND PRETENDING OTHERWISE IS NOTHING BUT A PATHETICALLY TRANSPARENT ATTEMPT TO WRIGGLE OUT OF THE BLAME YOU SO OBVIOUSLY AND RICHLY DESERVE.  
CG: STOP WASTING MY TIME.  
AA: but im telling the truth  
AA: i d0nt kn0w what y0ure asking me  
CG: AARGH A;SDKLFJA;LSDFKJA;LJKDFS;LADKSFJ  
CG: OKAY COLOR ME SKEPTICAL, BUT IF YOU WANT TO PLAY THIS GAME THEN FINE, HERE GOES.  
CG: IT'S SOLLUX.  
CG: HE HAD A TOTAL FUCKING MELTDOWN OVER HERE.  
AA: 0h  
AA: im s0rry t0 hear that  
CG: OH, YOU'RE SORRY TO HEAR THAT.  
CG: IS THAT SO.  
CG: WELL THAT JUST MAKES EVERYTHING ALL BETTER.  
CG: PROBLEM SOLVED, LET'S THROW A PARADE FOR THE SPOOKY GIRL WHO IS THE SHINING HERO OF THE DAY.  
CG: DO YOU WANT TO TELL ME WHY THIS IS HAPPENING.  
CG: WHY IS MY BEST FRIEND IS RAVING ABOUT THE END OF THE WORLD AND HOW WE'RE ALL ABOUT TO DIE.  
CG: AND A BUNCH OF OTHER ASSORTED GLOOMY, PARANOID BULLSHIT.  
AA: 0h  
AA: that  
CG: YES THAT.  
CG: JUST THAT MINOR LITTLE THING THAT'S PUSHED HIM INTO A COMPLETE MENTAL BREAKDOWN, NO BIG DEAL REALLY.  
AA: i am s0rry t0 hear that he is n0t taking it well  
CG: ARE THERE ANY SHREWD INSIGHTS YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHARE ABOUT WHAT INSTIGATED THIS.  
CG: ANY INSIGHTS AT ALL?  
CG: I'M WAITING WITH BATED BREATH HERE.  
AA: yes there is a simple explanati0n  
AA: that is because he has awakened as a pr0phet 0f d00m  
CG: HA.  
CG: YES, THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT HE SAID, TOO.  
CG: I KNEW THIS WAS YOUR FAULT.  
AA: 0_0  
AA: it is n0t my fault  
AA: it is n0 0nes fault  
AA: unless y0u want t0 blame the very f0rces that are resp0nsible f0r the perpetuati0n 0f reality itself  
CG: OH GOD, HERE WE GO.  
AA: s0llux has been destined t0 bec0me a pr0phet 0f d00m since the very creati0n 0f this universe  
AA: and he will serve in that capacity bey0nd its inevitable destructi0n as well  
AA: it is the r0le he must play in 0rder t0 bring ab0ut the chain 0f events that will ultimately link this m0ment t0 the future  
AA: this path has been ch0sen by the beings that preside 0ver the c0ntinued existence 0f parad0x space itself  
AA: i have n0 c0ntr0l 0ver them  
CG: OH FOR THE LOVE OF SWEET NOOKBITING FUCK WOULD YOU KNOCK THAT SHIT OFF.  
CG: MORE FROTHING LOONEYBLOCK NONSENSE FROM ONE OF MY PSYCHO FRIENDS, LET ME MAKE MYSELF GOOD AND COMFORTABLE FOR A NICE LONG SESSION OF LISTENING TO MORE OF THIS.  
CG: EXCEPT NOT.  
CG: I JUST KNEW THAT TALKING TO YOU WAS GOING TO BE A HUGE BULGE-WITHERING ORDEAL, AND LOOK HOW RIGHT I WAS.  
CG: WHAT DID YOU SAY TO HIM TO SET HIM OFF.  
CG: JUST SPIT IT OUT AND THEN YOU CAN GET BACK TO WHATEVER HORRENDOUSLY MORBID, DEPRESSING PASTIME YOU WERE UP TO BEFORE THIS.  
AA: it had t0 be this way  
AA: i did n0t set these events in m0ti0n i am merely playing my r0le  
AA: as we all are  
AA: even y0u have y0ur r0le t0 play karkat  
AA: and it will be a very imp0rtant 0ne  
AA: arguably 0ne 0f the m0st imp0rtant 0ut 0f all 0f 0urs  
CG: NO.  
CG: JUST NO.  
CG: FUCK THAT, AND FUCK YOU FOR SAYING THAT.  
CG: HE SAID THAT GARBAGE TOO, AND IT IS A MOUNTAIN OF FETID FUCKING BEHEMOTH LEAVINGS.  
CG: THIS IS HAPPENING BECAUSE OF THE SPOOKY CRAP YOU TWO ARE ALWAYS UP TO, NO OTHER REASON.  
CG: STOP PUTTING TERRIBLE IDEAS IN HIS HEAD.  
CG: IT MAKES YOU A TERRIBLE PERSON.  
AA: 0_0  
CG: JUST TELL HIM THAT ALL OF THIS IDIOCY ABOUT THE END OF THE WORLD ISN'T REAL.  
CG: WHEN HE WAKES UP, TELL HIM THAT HIS SO-CALLED VISIONS WERE JUST A DREAM OR SOMETHING SO THAT HE'LL SNAP THE FUCK OUT OF IT ALREADY.  
AA: i will n0t d0 that  
AA: i will n0t lie t0 him  
AA: everything he says is true  
AA: y0u sh0uld listen t0 him t00 s0 that y0u may be better prepared f0r what is t0 c0me  
AA: 0f c0urse i say this kn0wing full well that y0u will n0t  
AA: y0u will c0ntinue t0 ign0re the c0nfluence 0f events as they 0ccur ar0und y0u even as each subsequent predicti0n c0mes true  
AA: that will all0w y0u t0 make the critical decisi0ns that will cause all 0f the trials we must face including the great und0ing itself  
AA: and yet they are als0 necessary f0r the pr0gressi0n 0f reality  
CG: UUUUUUUUGH.  
CG: SEE, THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT.  
CG: THIS FATALISTIC, DREARY, PARANOID BULLSHIT, RIGHT HERE.  
CG: YOU SAY THIS SHIT AND HE JUST FEEDS OFF OF IT, AND THEN YOU FEED OFF OF HIM FEEDING OFF OF IT, AND THEN HE JUST FEEDS OFF OF IT SOME MORE.  
CG: AND THEN HE WINDS UP DEPRESSED.  
CG: IT'S LIKE SOME SORT OF SELF-FULFILLING MOBIUS DOUBLE REACH-AROUND OF GLOOM AND DOOM.  
CG: YOU WITH YOUR VOICES OF THE DEAD AND HIM WITH HIS VOICES OF THE IMMINENTLY DECEASED.  
CG: YOU'RE LIKE TWO SIDES OF A FUCKING COIN.  
CG: LIKE TWO SMALL SPHERICAL GREEN VEGETABLES IN A SLIME POD.  
CG: FUCK.  
CG: NO WONDER YOU TWO GET ALONG SO WELL.  
CG: OH GOD, WHY DID I NEVER REALIZE THIS BEFORE?  
CG: I AM SUCH A FUCKING IDIOT.  
CG: IT IS SO CRYSTAL CLEAR NOW, I CAN'T BELIEVE I EVER MANAGED TO MISS THIS SOMEHOW.  
CG: WHY DID HE EVEN COME TO MY HIVE YESTERDAY?  
CG: NOW I FEEL LIKE SUCH AN ASSHOLE FOR EVEN CONSIDERING IT, I MEAN OBVIOUSLY THIS HAS ALL BEEN A HUGE MISTAKE!  
CG: HE SHOULD BE WITH YOU RIGHT NOW.  
CG: THAT WOULD MAKE SO MUCH MORE FUCKING SENSE.  
CG: FUCK.  
CG: FUCK ME FOR BEING SUCH A FUCKING DUMBASS.  
AA: 0_0  
AA: i didnt f0ll0w m0st 0f that karkat but i d0nt think its true  
AA: i think if he is there it is because he needs y0u right n0w  
AA: s0 it can 0nly be a g00d thing that hes there  
AA: with y0u  
CG: HA.  
CG: HAHAHAHA.  
CG: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!  
CG: I DON'T THINK YOU WOULD SAY THAT IF YOU KNEW WHAT'S BEEN GOING ON OVER HERE.  
AA: n0 i think i w0uld still be 0k with it  
AA: im 0k with m0st things  
CG: WHOA.  
CG: JUST WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO SAY HERE.  
CG: WHAT IS THIS.  
CG: ARE YOU ACTUALLY ENCOURAGING ME TO  
CG: UM  
CG: WHAT EXACTLY ARE YOU ENCOURAGING ME TO DO HERE?  
CG: IS THIS SOME WEIRD KIND OF PERMISSION, IS THAT WHAT'S HAPPENING HERE?  
CG: WHY WOULD YOU EVEN DO THAT, OH MY GOD.  
CG: THIS IS UNSPEAKABLY FUCKED UP.  
AA: 0_0  
AA: what  
AA: what kind 0f permissi0n are y0u talking ab0ut  
CG: I DON'T KNOW, THAT'S WHAT I'M ASKING YOU, WHAT KIND OF PERMISSION ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?  
AA: but i didnt say anything ab0ut permissi0n  
AA: y0u br0ught that up  
CG: BUT YOU SAID  
CG: YOU KNOW WHAT YOU FUCKING SAID!  
CG: I'M REREADING THIS CONVERSATION AND I STILL CAN'T FUCKING BELIEVE IT!  
CG: OH MY GOD I AM SO FUCKING CONFUSED RIGHT NOW.  
AA: as am i  
AA: i kn0w what i said but i d0nt think any part 0f it was c0nfusing  
AA: i was being direct and straightf0rward and the nature 0f y0ur c0nfusi0n is c0nfusing t0 me  
CG: OKAY, YOU KNOW WHAT?  
CG: THIS MAY VERY WELL BE THE MOST AGGRAVATING AND FUCKED UP CONVERSATION THAT I'VE HAD IN THE PAST DAY, AND THAT'S FUCKING SAYING SOMETHING.  
CG: MY THINK PAN IS KILLING ME, I CAN'T TAKE MUCH MORE OF THIS SHIT.  
CG: LOOK.  
CG: JUST GIVE ME A STRAIGHT ANSWER HERE.  
CG: ARE YOU GOING TO TELL HIM THAT THIS END OF THE WORLD CRAP IS NONSENSE, OR NOT.  
AA: i t0ld y0u already  
AA: i will n0t lie t0 him  
CG: SO THAT'S A NO.  
AA: n0  
AA: i mean yes  
AA: yes it is a n0  
AA: this is all part 0f the greater purp0se  
CG: WELL ISN'T THAT A CONVENIENT LITTLE JUSTIFICATION FOR NOT DOING ANYTHING OR CARING ABOUT ANYTHING, EVER.  
CG: IT'S ALL PART OF THE GREATER PURPOSE, SO WHY SHOULD YOU LIFT A PRONG TO TRY TO MAKE THINGS BETTER.  
CG: HE'S COMPLETELY FUCKED IN THE HEAD RIGHT NOW, DOESN'T THAT BOTHER YOU.  
CG: EVEN THE TINIEST BIT.  
AA: s0llux will be fine  
AA: they t0ld me  
AA: he still has imp0rtant w0rk t0 d0  
CG: I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M HEARING THIS, YOU ARE SUCH AN AWFUL PERSON.  
AA: 0_0  
CG: HE'S FUCKING MISERABLE AND YOU DON'T EVEN CARE.  
CG: WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU.  
AA: that s0llux will be 0k is an immutable fact that i am stating f0r the rec0rd  
AA: it d0esnt mean that caring is n0t what is happening here  
AA: y0u sh0uld find it reassuring when i tell y0u he will be 0k  
CG: OF COURSE I SHOULD.  
CG: BECAUSE YOU'RE PRACTICALLY A PARAGON OF SANITY, HOW COULD I DOUBT ANYTHING THAT YOU SAY.  
CG: YOUR REASSURANCES COME STRAIGHT FROM THE VOICES IN YOUR HEAD, WHICH ARE UNQUESTIONABLY THE MOST RELIABLE SOURCES OF INFORMATION THAT EXIST, HAVE EVER EXISTED OR COULD POSSIBLY EXIST.  
CG: WHAT KIND OF A MADTROLL WOULD YOU HAVE TO BE TO EVEN THINK ABOUT SUGGESTING THAT WHAT THEY TELL YOU MAY FALL EVEN A HAIR'S BREADTH SHORT OF PRISTINE ACCURACY AT ALL TIMES.  
CG: MY WORRIES HAVE BEEN ASSUAGED BY YOUR EXTREMELY PERSUASIVE AND REASONABLE STATEMENTS, I'M SO GLAD WE HAD THIS TALK.  
CG: I'M GOING TO GO TAKE A NICE LITTLE RELAXING NAP IN MY COCOON NOW WITH NARY A CARE IN THE WORLD WEIGHING ON MY BLOOD PUSHER.  
AA: 0_0  
CG: WELL WELL, WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT.  
CG: AS I PREDICTED, THIS HAS ALL BEEN A COMPLETE FUCKING WASTE OF MY PRECIOUS TIME.  
CG: I'M GOING TO GO AND TRY TO ACTUALLY HELP MY FRIEND, WHICH IS SOMETHING YOU SHOULD WANT TO DO ALSO.  
CG: ESPECIALLY YOU, OF ALL PEOPLE!  
CG: OR SO I THOUGHT.  
CG: BUT MAYBE I WAS COMPLETELY OFF BASE AFTER ALL.  
CG: FUCK, I DON'T EVEN KNOW ANYMORE.  
CG: SUDDENLY I DON'T UNDERSTAND ANYTHING.  
AA: 0_0  
AA: neither d0 i karkat  
AA: y0u l0st me again  
AA: the c0nfusing party in this c0nversati0n is actually y0u n0t me  
CG: SHUT UP.  
CG: I'M JUST TRYING TO FIGURE SOME THINGS OUT, OKAY.  
AA: 0k  
AA: i want t0 help s0llux and if theres s0mething i can d0 with0ut lying then i will d0 it  
AA: but i d0nt kn0w what that w0uld be  
AA: i think maybe he just needs s0me time t0 c0me t0 terms with his new r0le  
CG: FUCK THAT.  
CG: FUCK THAT RECOMMENDATION IN EVERY SINGLE FILTHY ORIFICE IT'S GOT.  
CG: I'M NOT GOING TO JUST STAND BY AND WATCH HIM SUFFER, THAT'S CRAP.  
CG: I'M GOING TO DO SOMETHING.  
CG: FUCK IF I KNOW WHAT, BUT DEFINITELY SOMETHING.  
CG: WATCH ME STOP WASTING MY TIME LISTENING TO VERBAL BEHEMOTH LEAVINGS FROM A CREEPY PSYCHO GIRL AND START DOING SOMETHING WORTHWHILE, JUST LOOK AT ME GO.  
AA: 0_0

carcinoGeneticist [CG] ceased trolling apocalypseArisen [AA]


End file.
